How to change units in Autopipe

By default in Autpipe the units are ENGLISH. How can I change them in Metric system?

 

Thanks

Parents
  • In the AutoPIPE folder there are sevral unit files (*.UNT). The default unit file is AUTOPIPE.UNT and is identical to ENGLISH.UNT. You can change the default by copying METRIC.UNT or SI.UNT into AUTOPIPE.UNT.

    You can also select the option Tools/Mode Options/Save defaults to save many other data like piping code and result and edit options and some analysis options. This way you can still use METRIC as your unit file. Please note that the only way to disable the defaults options is to delete the file autopipe.dfl in the AutoPIPE folder.

    Karim

Reply
  • In the AutoPIPE folder there are sevral unit files (*.UNT). The default unit file is AUTOPIPE.UNT and is identical to ENGLISH.UNT. You can change the default by copying METRIC.UNT or SI.UNT into AUTOPIPE.UNT.

    You can also select the option Tools/Mode Options/Save defaults to save many other data like piping code and result and edit options and some analysis options. This way you can still use METRIC as your unit file. Please note that the only way to disable the defaults options is to delete the file autopipe.dfl in the AutoPIPE folder.

    Karim

Children
  • Expanding on this topic a bit: how do you create a custom units file?

    I've worked on a few jobs where we had custom unit files, for example ENCANA.UNT. They were very convenient because for the unit of pressure they used kPa instead of the cumbersome N/mm^2 or kg/cm^2.

     How do I create such a file for a new job? (AutoPIPE version is XM if that makes a difference)

     Thanks

    JRW

  • To create a custom unit file, copy the file SI.UNT into CUSTOM.UNT (use your own name of 8 characters)..

    Now compare the ENGLISH.UNT with CUSTOM.UNT

    Notice   1.0 * ft  = 304.8 *mm

                   1.0*psi = 0.006894757 * N/mm2    (or MPa)

    you may change to kPa by using the relationship

                   1.0 * psi = 6.894757 * kPa

    This is a text file so you can edit in notepad. (It is best if you start by copying the file rather than creating a new file). Make sure that the numbers are lined up vertically and do not extend to beyond what other units are using for factors or names.

    The unit factors can be easily determined in MathCAD if you have it. e.g. type  psi=    and then change units to kPa to see the factor.

     

    It is very important to write the correct unit factor and unit label. You can have serious problems that would affect many future models and that would be hard to correct afterwards. Please have another person check these modifications for you.

    Karim

  • Thank you very much Karim!

    I see that the unit files have stayed the same between the different versions of AutoPIPE and therefore are transferrable, correct?

  • Usually you can use unit files between versions. However more recently in version 9.1 and later we have increase the number of units from 35 to 40. This means version 9.1 requires 40 lines of units and could crash if tried to read a unit file with 35 units. 

    In order to use older unit files, you would need to copy the missing units (36-40) from the end of one of the new unit file to the end of the old unit file.

     

    Karim

  • You may create a simple script to automate this task.

    Simply copy&paste the following lines to notepad and save it as a .BAT file. Then just run it.

    @ECHO OFF

    CD C:\Bentley\AutoPIPE V8i SELECTseries3

    REN autopipe.unt autopipe.unt.bak

    COPY mmetric.unt autopipe.unt

    Note the "mmetric" file has all dimensions based in metric units with with exemption to the diameter (inches).