Learn the step-by-step process of creating a pressure network using the pressure network creation tools in Civil 3D. This comprehensive guide explains the various methods and options available, including adjusting pipe sizes, referencing surfaces, setting a cover distance, and adding appurtenances and fittings.
Key Insights
- The process of creating a pressure network in Civil 3D involves navigating to the home tab of the ribbon bar, selecting the pipe network dropdown, and choosing the pressure network creation methods.
- Various options and methods are available during the creation process, such as creating a pressure network from an object, selecting a name for the network, deciding on the pipe sizes, and referencing surfaces for construction purposes.
- With the pressure network created, Civil 3D provides a contextual ribbon bar for further modifications, which includes adding new pipe runs, laying out the center line for the pipe run, adding bends automatically, and running design checks and depth checks.
All right, so now that we've talked about our pressure network catalogs and parts lists, we're going to go ahead and create a pressure network. In order to do that, we're going to go ahead and navigate up to the home tab of the ribbon bar. We're going to go over to the pipe network dropdown, and inside of the pipe network dropdown, we have the pressure network creation methods.
So the methods that we're going to be using for this course is the pressure network creation tools. We do also have an option of creating a pressure network from an object, just like we had for creating a pipe network from an object or creating a feature line from an object. Civil 3D will take a polyline or some other object inside civil 3D and create a pressure network based off of it.
And then same thing with a create pressure network from industry model. There are industry models that you can import into civil 3D and create pressure networks from them. We're going to go ahead and just deal with pressure network creation tools.
So from here, we're going to go ahead and click on pressure network creation tools to bring up the create pressure pipe network window. So from here, we're going to go ahead and select a name for our pressure network. We're going to be dealing with a pressure network on our dev main side.
We did our drainage on our dev branch. We're going to do our pressure networks on our dev main. So from here, you can name your pipe runs.
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I'm just going to go ahead and leave it as pipe run next counter. And we can change it later if we feel like it. So from there, we have our parts list.
We're going to be dealing with creating a water pressure network. So I'm going to go ahead and go with our water parts list. So from here, you can choose what you want to start out your pipe sizes at, but we can modify this later.
So I'm going to go ahead and go with a 12 inch push on ductile iron. And then from there, we can go ahead and go to our reference surfaces. So reference surfaces, we're going to go ahead and reference our finished construction surface so that if our pressure network goes off of our design surface, then it will use the existing terrain surface to build off of.
So I'm going to go ahead and go with finished construction. I am going to check this option for create surface profile to follow so that it follows the surface that we are referencing. So I'm going to make sure that we have five feet of cover when we're creating this pipe network.
And so I'm going to set my cover to five. I am not going to set a reference alignment or any label styles for our pressure network. So once I've done that, I'm going to go ahead and hit okay.
And civil 3D opens up the contextual ribbon bar for creating a pressure network. So once we have this open, we have the information for a network properties. If we select this our dev main water information, all of our layout settings, labels, pressure parts list, reference surface, the different layers, the name templates for the pipes, the fittings, and the appurtenances.
We have profile display information, section display information, and the statistics for the overall pipe network. So I'm going to go ahead and hit cancel. From here, we also have parts properties.
If we had a part to select, we could hit parts properties, and then we can select that part and look at the parts properties. I'm going to hit escape. So then we have the options for creating a pipe run.
We have the options for adding a new pipe run, creating a pipe run from an object or creating a pipe run from parts. Then we have the options for what is the pipe size that we're going to be using. We have the option for adding bends automatically.
When we lay out these pipe runs, we're going to lay out the center line for the pipe run. And then at every vertices that we create, Civil 3D can automatically add the bends in at that vertices. If you leave this checked, it will add the bends in for you.
If you don't add those bends in, you can go ahead and add them in by clicking on this add bend slash PL. Same thing with removing bends. And then that's not PL, it's PI, point of intersection.
So add bends at PI, remove bends at PI. We have the options for adding branch fittings, adding fittings, adding appurtenances. Then we have the drop downs for selecting the different fittings and the different appurtenances.
We have a panorama window that we can open that will give us all of the information about our pressure network. And then we have some of the modifications that we can make to our pressure network, adding pipe runs and profiles, drawing parts into a profile view, swapping parts, breaking apart pipe runs, merging pipe runs together, and then running design checks, depth checks, and then adding labels and tables to our pressure network. So the first thing we're going to go ahead and do is we're going to add in our first pipe run.
I'm going to go ahead and drop down. I'm going to make sure I'm doing my 12 inch pipe. I'm going to go ahead and click add new pipe run, and I'm going to select create new pipe run.
So from here, Civil 3D is giving me the option of placing a pipe run. It's saying pipe run, next counter. I'm going to go ahead and go with water, pipe size 12, finish construction, five feet of cover.
I'm going to go ahead and click okay. So from here, Civil 3D is now asking me to specify the first point in my pipe network. So I'm going to go ahead and come down to the end of my alignment.
I'm going to snap in down here at the end point. I'm going to then come up to the beginning of this curve. I'm going to snap in at the beginning of the curve.
I'm going to snap in at the end of the curve. Then I'm going to go ahead and move on to the next curve, snap in at the beginning of the curve, snap in at the end of the curve. Then I'm going to go ahead and go to the end of my alignment.
Now, normally you would want to have some sort of main that you're tying into. We don't have one drawn into this drawing. So I'm going to be okay with just selecting the end of this alignment.
But if you had data on what an existing pipe network looked like, you could model that here, and then you could use that pipe network and connect into it. It's not as big of a deal as our pipe networks, because with pipe networks, it's gravity flow. With pressure networks, it's under pressure.
We can run these pipes under pressure. We don't have to worry about if we have enough fall. We're really worried about just making sure we have enough cover.
So I'm going to go ahead and click on this end of here, and then I'm going to hit escape to get out of that command. Now you'll notice that Civil 3D has created all of my pipes and my bends based on the polyline that I drew between this point here and that point here. So I'm going to go ahead and escape out.
I'm going to close this. I'm going to save my drawing, and then I'll meet you in the next video.