Drainage and Utilities - General Functionality and Licensing Information

The “Open X Designer” products (OpenSite, OpenRoads, and OpenRail) all include functionality for Drainage and Utilities, but what does this mean, and what can you do with it?

Layout

You can lay out, using tools like Place Node, Place Conduit, ModelBuilder, and Extract Utilities from Graphics, as many nodes and conduits as you like - there are no license restrictions on the number of elements you create. This applies to any utility type – e.g. drainage, electric, etc. Licensing restrictions only apply when you compute storm and sanitary hydraulics and hydrology – they do not apply to other utility types – e.g. electric, comms, etc.

Storm and sanitary hydraulics and hydrology

When you click Compute, to calculate the hydraulics and hydrology of a storm or sanitary system, licensing restrictions apply. The elements in the design file are checked, to see whether there are more than 100 catch basins in the model. You would use catch basins, as opposed to manholes, when you want to calculate how well it handles surface water runoff – the efficiency with which it captures flow, the spread width, etc. If there are more than 100 catch basins, then you will see a message that tells you this, and Compute will not give you any results. You can compute the hydraulics and hydrology of a system that has more than 100 manholes, or any number of “node” elements, as long as there are no more than 100 catch basins in the design file. The number of networks – discrete systems that discharge to separate outfalls – is not subject to licensing restrictions, so you can have one network or ten – as long as there are no more than 100 catch basins in total. While you could organise your systems so that they are in separate models in the design file, this may make effective collaboration harder to achieve. If more than one designer is working on storm and sanitary systems, a better approach is to use more than one design file – perhaps using one design file per catchment or outfall, for example.

Hydraulics and hydrology – the “Rational Method”

The method used to calculate the hydraulics and hydrology of a storm or sanitary system is often called the “Rational Method”. This is what the software will use, unless you activate another licence. The “Rational Method”, and local derivatives like the Modified Rational Method that is used in the United Kingdom, are considered to be appropriate for designing smaller systems. In essence, catchment runoff is calculated using CiA/360 to give a peak flow, which is then used to analyse or design the conveyance system, using steady-state, gradually varied flow techniques.

Hydraulics and hydrology – other methods

Other, more comprehensive, methods of solving storm and sanitary hydraulics and hydrology are available in the “Open X Designer” products, by activating the appropriate license. This is done by clicking the appropriate icon in the Drainage and Utilities workflow, which is on the Tools ribbon, in the License Activation group:

Notes:

• No separate installation is necessary to access any of these licenses – the software is installed as part of the “Open X Designer” product install.
• If you already have a license for any of these OpenFlows products – e.g. CivilStorm standalone, then these are the same licences as the icons shown above use.
• If your model contains more than 100 catch basins, but the “Rational Method” solution is what you want to use, then activate a licence for StormCAD Unlimited.
• If you are designing sanitary, as opposed to storm drainage, or if your system includes pumps and force mains, then activating a licence for SewerCAD gives you access to “Gradually Varied Flow - Convex” calculations, which are designed for this purpose. It also gives you access to methods that are more appropriate to calculating loads on sanitary sewers, such as the number and types of buildings.
• If you want to use unsteady-state hydraulics and hydrology methods, then activating a license for CivilStorm or SewerGEMS gives you access to these. If, for example, you have designed storm drainage that caters for the “design storm” but you want to route runoff hydrographs through the system, then activate a license for CivilStorm or SewerGEMS. They will also let you model attenuation (such as a pond) and Low Impact Developments – anything that requires a hydrograph. A number of runoff and loss models are available, to suit local practice.
• CivilStorm and SewerGEMS include two methods of calculating unsteady-state hydraulics and hydrology, one of which is EPA-SWMM.
• As well as the two unsteady-state methods, a CivilStorm licence includes the steady-state, Gradually Varied Flow – Rational method.
• As well as the two unsteady-state methods, a SewerGEMS licence includes the steady-state, Gradually Varied Flow – Rational, and the Gradually Varied Flow - Convex methods.

Once activated, these licenses remain in use for the duration of the “Open X Designer” session. Close the session to release the activated license.

License Restrictions – CivilStorm, SewerCAD, and SewerGEMS

Unlike StormCAD, which is licensed on the number of catch basins in the model, CivilStorm, SewerCAD, and SewerGEMS are licensed on the number of links in the model. A link is a conduit, channel, or gutter element.

Activating a CivilStorm, SewerCAD, and SewerGEMS license for the first time

When you activate a CivilStorm, SewerCAD, and SewerGEMS license for the first time, checks are made to see if you have a license available for it, and how many links it is for. You will see a dialog similar to this:

Once you have clicked Select to choose the license that you want to use, this choice is remembered and will be used when you activate that license again in subsequent sessions of the Open X Designer product. If you need to change the number of links that you have selected at any point in the future, then you can do so by using the Bentley Licensing Tool:

On the Bentley Licensing Tool dialog, click Tools > Select Feature Level. The Feature Level Selector dialog is displayed, and you can select the appropriate product and feature level for the number of links that you need.

More information

For more information about StormCAD, CivilStorm, SewerCAD, and SewerGEMS, see:

https://www.bentley.com/en/products/product-line/hydraulics-and-hydrology-software/stormcad

https://www.bentley.com/en/products/product-line/hydraulics-and-hydrology-software/sewercad

https://www.bentley.com/en/products/product-line/hydraulics-and-hydrology-software/civilstorm

https://www.bentley.com/en/products/product-line/hydraulics-and-hydrology-software/sewergems

For more information about EPA-SWMM, see:

https://www.epa.gov/water-research/storm-water-management-model-swmm

For more information about licensing, see:

https://communities.bentley.com/products/hydraulics___hydrology/w/hydraulics_and_hydrology__wiki/39681/licensing-openflows-products---subscription-entitlement-service-connect-licensing