Hydratec Inc.

Need to save a card for later?

Create a bookmark folder in your browser of choice (Chrome, Firefox...), and save individual cards in your bookmarks to view here later.

Revit Based HydraCALC (Ribbon/Toolbar/Location)

Button: Hydraulic Calculations Function: Continue

Description:

Calc process gets stuck on step 5a.3


Solutions:

Cause:

Selected system data may not have enough flow to determine a logical order for the input to the HydraCALC program.

Important Background for understanding this problem:

The AutoCALC process collects all of the pipes that you’ve selected (in no particular order) and performs a mathematical calculation to determine the flow and pressure loss in every pipe.  This first calculation is subsequently used to organize the pipes into a logical order to display in the HydraCALC input program and ultimately for the final submittal printouts.  The pressure at each point from the initial calculation is used as a guide to determine the logical paths for organizing that input.  When your system includes very little flow or very large pipes and therefore very little pressure difference between various points in the paths, that organization process can get ‘confused’ or variable.  As a result to organization process to chose one set of paths to represent a constantly increasing pressure as the calculation proceeds from the remote node back toward the supply.  When it checks that set of paths, the variable calculation of virtually no friction loss suggests a randomly different set of paths.  This can prevent the process from ever settling on a logical order for the input and effectively HANG UP the process.
Solution:

Cancel the current process and increase the friction loss through the system.  This can be done in several ways:

  1. If the remote area is made up of Operating Sprinklers, you could change the minimum pressure from 7.00 (typical for sprinklers) to 25 or even 50 to force more flow required out of every sprinkler.  Note: this method would not help for Standpipe type calculations because the flow required is fixed regardless of press.

  2. If the remote area is made up of Hose Connections, you could change the flow required from each Hose from 250 to 1000   or from 100 to 300.  These are examples to provide specific values, but your piping configuration may require substantially different changes.

  3. If you have easily identifiable sections of very large diameter piping, you could change those large pipe diameters in the model to much smaller pipe diameters.  This will cause much greater friction loss in those sections and allow the progress to use that added friction loss to better organize the input for the HydraCALC program

  4. You could add a temporary hose valve connection to your model with a large hose flow demand.  You can position this connection to add flow (and subsequent friction loss) to the pipes that would otherwise be well oversized.  IE if your system has mostly normal sized pipe but 12” underground, the underground might confuse the organization process by not having enough pressure loss in the underground pipes to sort out which pipes go in what order.  By adding a large hose flow requirement at the base of the riser, you can artificially produce enough friction loss in the underground to make that sorting process successful.

All of the above adjustments are intended to be temporary for the purpose of providing the necessary friction loss to facilitate the calculation input organization process.  Once in the HydraCALC input program, these temporary changes can easily be undone to produce the actual results required.  IE  you could use the search and replace function to change all 25’s in the Pressure column back to 7    or all the +1000’s in the K/Flow column back to +250, etc
Updated: Dec. 6, 2024, 10:18 a.m. Created: Dec. 6, 2024, 10:16 a.m.