VIK2008project

VIKproject – new ideas and solutions. Specialists of water supply and sewage networks design department

Measures taken by IngGeo to increase quality and reduce design costs include active development of software products. One of the innovations is Project VIK2008 designed exclusively by our company on the platform of AutoCAD2006 to automate design of external gravity flow sewage systems and pressure water supply pipeline networks. The designers’ group were asked to develop a software product which would save pipeline design time, automate main time-consuming operation.

Users’ needs analysis

The main design difficulty is the large scale of routine work. The VIK department specialists spent a considerable part of their working time determining points of the profile [drawing], plotting sections, and preparing report documents. The largest scope of work included drawing of sections, design of the pipeline, preparation of BOM, which operations are 90% automatable.

In addition to designing pipelines, adjacent departments design other objects at the same site. This results in frequent collisions arising from non-compliance of the mutual location of designed objects with the appropriate requirements. Alterations continue to be made to the project to meet all requirements. The alterations are especially difficult at the last design stages when the larger part of the design work is already done. Therefore, a need arose to find possibilities to rapidly make low-cost alterations to the designing documents at any development stage.

Due to time constraints, the design of different parts of a pipeline is conducted simultaneously by different personnel. There is a need for the software to enable effective collaborative work of design team.

Elaboration of BOM, calculations of scope of earth work, etc. were done manually and took up to 15% of total project time. Users wished the main part of the documents to be formed automatically on the basis of the information contained in the design drawings.

Therefore, the combination of maximum simplicity and wide functional capabilities was required of the software. VIK project envisages user’s work in a familiar AutoCAD environment and permits process drawings of plans, profiles, detailed drawings and specifications elaborated by standard means.

Type of work	Labor input (percentage of total time)
Plan preparation	20
Work on profile drawing	40
Detailed drawings of wells	15
Elaboration of specifications and work scopes	15
Calculations	10

Distribution of total project time for execution of main types of works (according to results of the analysis of requirements).

Functional capabilities of the VIK project

• Construction of the pipeline according to the plan (which includes POLILINE); editing pipeline properties; automatic and manual implementation of design elements (lettering, layout, pipeline diameter and length, leaders specifying the reference grid affixed to the site)
• Ability to set characteristic points of the pipeline both automatically and manually; ability to edit the properties of the points; automatic and serial numeration of points; embossing of leaders that affix characteristic points to the reference grid
• Marks the characteristic points according to digital topographical models with a possibility to choose various DEM/DTMs for “red” and “black points”; DEM/DTM can be created in CREDO, GEONICS, Autodesk Land Desktop; special functions can be marked according to the triangle constructed by the user
• Automatic plotting of the profile according to State standards and filling of subbasement sections; embossment of the profile design elements according to plotted scales, leaders service lines to be crossed; plotting scale one profile can include several “red” and “black” sectors
• Automatic laying of the pipeline on the profile taking into account the positions of the service lines to be crossed, maximal and minimal depth, allowable slopes of the gravity pipeline; interactive editing and updating capabilities (with regards to changing the pipeline’s position, re-calculating of the depth of the wells, and updating images thereof); prompter showing the slope and mark of the edited pipeline
• Earthwork analysis in trenches and pits according to (based on dimensions of the trench, volume of the foundation, and methods of filling the trench with local and imported soils); ability to perform different acclivities at different depths (to 1.5m; to 3m; deeper than 3m); automatic setting of acclivities according to soil type
• Fitting application - specify construction properties of base products in a specific order to automatically generate and insert into the drawing (valves and other equipment) according to the scale; bases of products for valves and other components
• “Reference Grid” application - generates reference grid and automatically specifies coordinates
• Automatic generation of detailed drawings of wells (aerial view and side view) according to the cutting plane specified by the user; detailed drawings can be simultaneously created for all the project wells
• Project application allows for sheet numbering, insertion of title blocks and automatic generation of the register of the set of drawings.
• joint work possibility - distributed drawing location within the network; specification of the project details; repeated filling of the existing specification
• free location of information (i.e. plot profiles on the layout drawings and then copy them to other project sheets using AutoCAD)
• easy adjustment of graphic objects; generate adjustments by picking them up from the existing object on the drawing
• Help system describing the sequence of actions necessary to fulfill operations and explaining the principles according to which the software is designed; includes training videos

 

Project specificities

 

Imposing the pipeline onto the layout, the software automatically imprints the network of angles, turns, and wells, leaders affixing characteristic points to the reference grid or leaders showing the length of the pipeline between characteristic points (user’s choice)

 

Software automatically generates detailed drawing of the well (aerial view or side view depending on which plane the user chooses).

 

During the automatic generation of the profile drawing, the software specifies and plots coordinates on the well bottom, service line crossing points, and automatically fills sub-basement sectors.

 

After editing the position of the pipeline on the profile, the software sets the depth of pipes in the wells and updates the marks specified by leaders.

 

To make editing of pipeline on the profile easy, a window with information about the edited section of pipeline appears, including acclivity and specific marks.

 

Quote from the test protocol.

The VIK project:

• Drastically reduces time spent on determination of pipeline marks (10x if DTM/DEM are available)
• Cuts time spent on arrangement of pipeline on the layout in half
• Cuts time spent on construction of profiles in half
• Cuts time spent on designing the pipeline on the profile in half
• Increases accuracy of calculation of earthworks and reduces time for execution thereof by 5 times