Banner
AEC Mechanical BIM Design Hardware Collaboration Privacy

Current Filter: CAD>>>>>Review>

PREVIOUS

Filtered Articles:2 of 381   Current Article ID:5966

NEXT



It’s Flow time!

Editorial Type: Review     Date: 09-2015    Views: 4499      








Flow provides a simple calculation and simulation tool that takes the hard work, and the expense, out of developing drainage networks to handle critical storm events

I probably use only about 5% of Microsoft Word, ignoring the raft of features that are available. That is quite enough for me as a journalist, and I am grateful that I don’t have to fork out a large sum for stuff I don’t use. When it comes to some technical applications, however, no distinction is made between the power user who bases most of his work around the total software package, and the occasional dabbler. If it’s an expensive package to boot, that dissuades smaller practices from using it - and opens up opportunities for other companies to satisfy a user’s more direct aspirations.

Such is the case with Causeway. With their in-house expertise in drainage engineering, Causeway have taken the opportunity to develop and launch a hydraulic calculation package that provides everything that a drainage engineer requires, without the unneeded features of the much more expensive alternative.

Causeway are of course well known as developers of accounting systems for the construction industry. Like others in the industry, however, they are developing their involvement in other areas, and have created five business units to focus on solutions for vertical markets, leveraging the development facilities that they have in-house.

It is their Infrastructure Design Business Unit that has developed the application they have called Flow - an apt name for a simple and low cost application that handles the flow of water in storm and foul water drainage networks. This followed the realisation that companies couldn’t justify spending money on the more expensive package and so were instead doing all of their calculations manually, or outsourcing them. Besides that, they also found the more expensive solution too complicated to use, and capable users in such organisations were in short supply.

Having started in October last year, Causeway have put together a desktop solution which is easy to navigate and usable by any drainage engineer with little training (there’s a trial version with a 40 minute tutorial). Although desktop based, Flow was developed from scratch and has tags inserted ready for placing on the web. It is designed to be sold as a service with a monthly or annual licence fee and varying subscription terms.

SITE DEVELOPMENT AND ANALYSIS
Flow is designed for site development, allowing users to build a terrain model, lay out a drainage network and then analyse its performance - the bread and butter of the design process.

Engineers can work either in a familiar spreadsheet format, or can use Causeway’s own civil engineering design solution PDS - Professional Design Suite (widely used in the site development sector) - to produce a more graphic interface.

It is a tag-based system, providing access to the different elements that need to be included in the calculations, from local weather data to components, type of analysis required - storm or foul - and other variables, surmounting a graphical illustration of the network being designed.

More than one network can be set up at a time and put through a simulation, but the analysis settings would then need to address all networks in the model. Flow can be used to model manholes, pipes, ground levels - even where pipes flow against the gradient of the surface - and the object of the exercise is to achieve an effective hydraulic flow rate at a prescribed cover depth using a combination of manual and automatic selection of pipe sizes by the software. Engineers will be pleased to note that the majority of the work is automated.

The automatic element of the software calculates the gradient of the pipe to achieve self-cleansing velocity and the size of pipe required to accommodate the calculated flow. The end result is indicated both within the spreadsheet and on the graphic display.

With the configured network, the results are shown using a further colour coding - a traffic light system which indicates green as being good, red invalid, and amber advisory (the software thinks the data might be correct but needs more information, for instance the manholes it relates to might need to be referenced in the model).

The software simulation looks at the network’s capabilities for handling extreme weather conditions over a number of user specified return periods - say 1, 30 and 100 years. Each can be analysed with or without the effects of a specified climate change percentage. The program identifies the critical duration within each return period for every node in the network.

Predicted rainfall data comes either from the Flood Studies Report or Flood Estimation Handbook, said to provide the most accurate or up to date information in the UK. Each uses a different set of parameters and location definition to calculate storm events particular to a location, both equally valid. Users can also set up their own rainfall profile. Summer and winter storm durations from 15 minutes to one day are analysed by default, but storms of up to 7 days long can be included if required.



Page   1  2

Like this article? Click here to get the Newsletter and Magazine Free!

Email The Editor!         OR         Forward ArticleGo Top


PREVIOUS

                    


NEXT