Hydraulics and Storm Calculations

I would like to know how yall do your hydraulics and storm calculations?

Do you us one of the following?

1. Flowmaster
2. Hydroflow/Hydrograph
3. Personal Excel Spread sheets
4. StormCad
5. PondPack
6. CulvertMaster
7. HecRas
8. Hand calculated
9. StormNet
10. Water Networks
11. other

Storm Pipe Hydraulics Part II

I was looking over my hydraulics labels for my storm pipe and notice if my pipe flow direction method was not set to either "start to end", "by slope", or bi-directional" my calculation would not work because of the negative value of my slope. Another thing I would like to point out is that you can assign Manning Coefficient to pipes so you can use them for your formulas in expressions. I made a mistake in adding mannings coefficient in my formulas in expression. This will not work if my pipe is not RCP. I noticed this because I was using PVC for my storm pipe at some locations.

Another thing I would like to point out, is when you insert the stm file from SSE for your hydraulic calculations the flow rate you had assigned will be revised based off what SSE calculated. When I designed my storm pipe I assigned the flow rate based on cumulative flow. In SSE the Q inserted into each pipe sections is the amount being added and not accumulative. Now my storm profile labels for calculating velocity and depth changes. Now i have to figure out how to just add the HGL line into my drawing from the SSE file and not have it updated or recreate a pipe network structures. I will keep yall posted on this.

Video Card Maintenance

I don't know how many if you have keep your video car drivers up-todate, but Civil 3D has the capabilities to do video card driver updates for you. If you go into your options dialog manager select the System tab. Then select check for updatse option. Civil 3D will link to the Autodesk database and search for updates for your video card and install them for you. I did this last year and I noticed a slightly better difference in performance. If you select View Tune Log and your will get all the information you could possibly want about you video card and drivers. You should check this out one day.

Storm Pipe Hydraulics

Doing storm pipe hydraulics is one of the most time consuming parts of designing. Here is a few quick tips to save you time. You can create a pipe profile label that can calculate the velocity of your pipe running under pressure flow (full flow slope) with the simple formula of Q/A. I did a post 2 months ago on how to create an expression for calculating area of pipe. One important step is to plug in your Q (flow rate) for each pipe section if you want your labels to work. Once you get into partial flow, the formula to calculate velocity becomes more complex. I have designed an expression for this but I am still running test to make sure all the bugs are out of it before I post it. I also want to add in the Civil 3D help catalog, there is a section covering mannings formula with expressions. Hope this helps you. Later

Removing Excel Spread Sheets From Drawings

I don't know if everyone knows this but the best way to remove Excel spread sheets that have been attached to drawings is go into the data link manager Simply type the datalink command and the dialog box will appear. In here, all the spread sheets that have been attached to the drawing will be listed. Just right click on one of the files and select delete. The reason I brought this up was because I helped a fellow coworker today with this same issue that he could not figure out. He wanted to remove these files that were listed in the xref manager but it would not let him. I simply walked over and provided him the command to do this. Anyways I hope this helps a few of yall techs and designers.

Creating a Quick Storm Pipe Network

For those designers that need to create a quick pipe network when under pressure to get your design done you can use the Creat Pipe Network From Objects option. Just simply create poyline for your center of pipe and select that polyline for your pipe network.You can also use your storm centerline alignment. On your command line, it will ask you the flow direction. If you look on screen, you will notice flow arrows on your polyline or alignment. Hit enter once you have the flow going upstream. The Creat pipe network from object dialog box will appear. What I like to do is use null structures at all structure locations and PVI's. You can later come back and swap the structures to whatever you need. I personally think this is much faster then going down the line and swapping structures and pipes while you laying out your pipe network. Hopefully this will be helpful to you.

Naming Assemblies with Field Labels

For those of you that like to keep your design information in order and user friendly here is a cool tip to keep you assemblies in order. You can create dynamic name fields for your assemblies so everyone that opens your drawing will know which assembly to use when designing. To create fields for your assembly click on the Insert pull down menu or select the field option on the far right. The field dialog box will appear. Scroll down the Field Names and select Object. Then select the option button at the top middle of the dialog box. Now just select your assembly. In the property list select Name and hit the OK button. You should see the name of your assembly attached to your cross hairs. Just hit enter once you have decide where to place the field. See images below for better understanding.