Add design margins to piping loads being sent to structural

When it comes to exporting pipe support loads from AutoPIPE to STAAD, PipeLINK is an effective tool. While PipeLINK has most of the necessary functionality, there is a lack in the ability to add a Design Margin to the pipe support loads sent from AutoPIPE to STAAD. The ability to apply a Design Margin to pipe support loads is vital for the following reasons:

• Allows for a Design Margin to be applied to the initial set of pipe support loads transmitted to STAAD in early phases of a project, and that Design Margin covers minor increases in pipe support loads resulting from design development later in the project. This reduces the amount of rework of the structural design as the project develops.

• A Design Margin accounts for unknowns and minor errors between pipe stress models and the real world (i.e., provides an extra safety factor).

There are 2 ways of applying a Design Margin that are necessary: a universal Design Margin and an individual Design Margin.

A universal Design Margin is applied to all components of pipe support loads with a specific nominal diameter/pipe size (first preference) or Pipe ID (second preference). For example, the pipe stress engineer may need to add a universal Design Margin of 10% to all pipe support loads for 2” NPS piping (i.e., apply to X, Y, and Z loads at all nodes that are 2” NPS).

An individual Design Margin is applied to a specific load component (X, Y, or Z) for a specific load case at a specific node. For example, the piping stress engineers may need to add an individual Design Margin of 20% to the seismic load cases in the Y-direction at node A05.

There are a few different ways of inputting Design Margin that would be useful:

• a percentage (e.g., 20%) that is added to the load calculated by AutoPIPE

• a specified value (e.g., 400 lbf) that is added to the load calculated by AutoPIPE

• a minimum value (e.g., 5000 lbf)

It is important to note that the Design Margin should not apply to any values shown in AutoPIPE (or AutoPIPE output reports). The Design Margin should only be applied when exporting pipe support loads with PipeLINK.

Attached is an example workflow with example dialog boxes to help illustrate the concepts described above.

This idea has been discussed previously with Mike Dattilio (Support Ticket #: CS0194265) over a Teams call.