Hi All,
I will be starting a project that will require a significant amount (acres) of piping/routing. Am curious to know what your reccomendations are for piping/routing software. Are there any that can be added into SW?
I have not used SW routing and i do not intend to use it because that means i have to buy SW premium and pay for "fisher-price" simulation and other software i'll never use.
Thanks in advance,
Dave
I used to design piping systems before SolidWorks introduced Routing., actually called Piping at that time. I used to align elbows, valves, etc, with fixed components inthe asembly, like pumps and heat exchangers. I then insert elbows into the assembly and mated them with the pumps and heat exchangers. Then you create pipe segments to connect everything up. But the process is not parametric. You move a pump and you have to manually update the pipe segments, unless you can write a good equation to define the length of each pipe.
SolidWorks Routing is far from perfect because it does not support adequately the methods of piping other than butt weld steel piping. But given your piping description, Routing should work well for you. Acres of piping is not usually done with socket weld piping systems. If you do not want SW Premium, contact your VAR and see if you can buy just Routing. I bought Piping many years ago as an add-in. Maybe you can still do that today, even though it is not advertised. But even if you cannot, the cost of the SW upgrade relative to the magnitude of acres of piping should ber insignificant?
Derek,
Sorry to the tardy response to your question. The largest piping assemblies that I do will fit into an ISO 45 foot shipping container. Anything that is in the scope of acres would probably need some type of terrain mapping? I don't have any idea what piping software is used on drilling platforms or oil refineries. But it would certainly be beyond the scope of the SolidWorks Routing package.
Hello David,
Okay.
I'd be interested to view a screen shot of the piping you've done.
Hi all,
Here are a few images of larger designs that customers have given us permission to use.
Cheers
Andy
Attachments
Hi Andy,
what did you use?
Was it standard SW functionality?
I've done small scale pipework using the basic mates (automated mate references where possible) and even that can labour intensive.
I have the same reservations as David about spending alot of money and support money for products that will not be used.
Thanks for the images Andy. They are impressive models, but most are still a long way short of what I'd expect to see if we're talking about facilities covering many acres. Question for you or SW. Do you consider SW routing a capable and suitable program to use for routing complex piping systems that span an area of many acres. If not, then I think SW should come out and state this clearly. My VAR has warned me off trying to tackle jobs this size with the software.
The first image is a few skid mounted vessels.
The second image is getting a bit closer to what I'm used to seeing on a plant with piping spanning acres. It appears to be a fairly small area of the plant. I'd like to see a more overall image of the whole plant. From my experience with routing, anyone who can persevere with it to get these results must have the patience of Noah. It's not just the modelling and software that pose problems, the software runs very slow with larger models and the model gets very culttered making it hard to see what you are doing. And don't forget, the model is only part of the story. You then need to prepare the arrangements and detail drawings. Big process plants typically have large structures with hundreds and thousands of steelwork members. Once you get over a few hundred bodies with trims SW gets bogged down and very slow even using the various large assembly tools.
Other questions that need to be answered are, apart from setting up the various piping libraries, what level of special customisation and automation (ie. programming) was required to achieve these results or was the software used pretty much standard SW routing. Were these models and drawings done efficiently compared with say preparing drawings in 2D CAD . I'd like to see the testimonials of three or four companies/users addressing these questions who have used routing in this context before being convinced.
The third image is a reasonable size but would again only be a small part of a large process plant.
The fourth image is one that I've seen a few times and again would only be a small part of a large process plant spanning many acres.
The last image is starting to get to a size that might be considered to cover more than a few acres. Correct me if I'm wrong but this is more a preliminary layout than a detailed engineering model.
In rough terms, a reasonable size process plant covering 'many acres' in my view is say a 1000m by 1500 m. In such a plant you would typically have a lot of different facilities for different parts of the process and have a dozen or more different fluids . Typical examples would include mineral extraction process plants for aluminium, nickel or copper plants.
Personally, if this is the biggest plant models that SW can show at this time and knowing the hassles we have with routing, I'd still stay well clear of it for facilities covering even a few acres. Of course if SW is prepared to pay you for the time wasted identifying the various bugs and generally helping to develop their software you may reconsider.
The other suggestion is that if a company is really serious about using SW for bigger plants, start of with smaller facilities and as the software proves itself and users learn tricks to overcome the problems encountered and efficient methods, move to bigger things. Keep in mind that new problems appear as the model size increases. The problem with many engineering companies doing this kind of work, at least in this country, is that they win a job and expect to be able to learn and implement new 3D software for that project. Gullible managers with little idea of what implementing the software really entails make the decisions and outlay huge amounts of money. The landscape is littered with the wreckages of projects where 3D CAD was tried and died. Companies need to view this as a long term proposition. I'd say three years would be a minimum duration to implement the software properly. That includes getting the administrative systems sorted out, training staff and getting to the stage where you understand the foibles of the software and can work around them. Three years is about 2 and a half years longer than most engineering companies I've worked with think ahead. A long term employee is someone who has stayed in the company for more than three years. Obviously with that kind of outlay and effort you want to be sure that you are going to get a result.
One other thing to consider is that 3D CAD systems have been around for a number of years. I remember impressive 3D CAD architectural packages being around when 2D CAD first started to take over from the drawing boards. 2D CAD replaced the board very quickly. 3D CAD has never really caught on for mining plant, or if it is used is still plagued with software problems.
I'd love to see SW make it in this game or even someone to prove me wrong. SW has a lot of potential and is getting better. But I still think it has a long way to go before you could say it is really suited to modelling and preparing drawings for a process plant covering many acres.
Derek,
FYI, Andy is a SolidWorks employee with responsibility for Routing. Check out his e-mail in his profile.
I suspect he will be able to answer your questions. :-)
Cheers,
Anna
Thanks Anna. I was aware of Andy's role with SW.
Derek, do you have a terrain model that you have to integrate your piping system into?
If so, you may have stepped out of MCAD and into either plant and process or civil engineering and these areas have specialized tools that are designed to develope system in terms of depth of cover, hydraulic grade and flow regiem and document in those terms.
You might check out Autodesk Civil 3D, Haestaed Water CAD or Bentley Plant Space.
I am aware of other CAD packages used for process plant John. They all have their shortcomings. The ones I've seen would not be able to model milling plant because of their limited modelling capabilities. Typically they would need to import models of equipment done in other packages such as SW.
Mineral processing plant consists of many acres of structures, vessels, tanks, crushing and grinding equipment etc. It is quite different to the reticluation of water services that is usually the domain of the civil people.
I don't know what the original OP had in mind but I suspect it was something along the lines of a mineral or chemical process plant. Maybe even a petro-chemical plant.
Here are some satellite shots of a few plants in Western Australia with a measured dimension giving an idea of the size and scale of this kind of thing. These would be considered relatively large process plant in Western Australia. Then there are other plants in other parts of the world and possible Australia that would be bigger again. Wherever you have mining you often have 'wet plant' used to extract the metal. It involves lots of tanks, vessels, pumps and piping.
This last one is a petro-chemical plant in the NW of WA.
Hi Derek,
Traditionally, SW Piping was aimed at skids and machine designers. However, customers have used it over the years for a great many other things. Also, over the years we have extended it's capabilities so that it is more suited to a broader range of industries. The largest of those models was created in 2003. It is fully detailed - particularly the piping part of it. The largest problems the customer had at that time was the 1K limit (now gone). Drawing creation and a couple of bugs with penetrated pipes.
Marketing state that SW Piping is suited to small to medium sized plant. However, even when we stated that is was aimed at machines and skids customers successfully used it for these much larger designs. We definitely don't claim to model large scale chemical plants - though as you have perceived, we do have customers using it for specific parts of these plants.
You are absolutely right in everything way say about companies needing to better understand the lifecycle of any CAD system and that it needs to be a long term commitment – at least for the more complex implementations.
Yes, I first used 3D CAD in 1980 – a frighteningly long time ago – for mechanical design and for electronics – PCB design.
I have seen dramatic failures and equally dramatic success stories, the latter are always down to the commitment of the company and its staff.
This is a very interesting post, thank you. It’s good to get a user reset occasionally to keep us grounded.
Cheers
Andy