Lesson 1
Lesson 1
Lesson 1
2 Project Views
The Project Views work pane is your starting point. Here you can create new projects and networks within
your project as well as access your Catalogues.
2.2.1 Networks
A new folder will appear in the tree structure, you can rename it if you wish. To display or modify its
properties, click on your Project name and the relevant properties will appear in the lower part of the
Project View pane.
You can toggle this view using the Show/ Hide Properties icon at the top of the Project View pane.
You can add a description and select unit and symbol sets by doing the following:
To add a Description Click on the adjacent cell and then click the button to open the Description
dialogue. Click OK.
To select a Unit Set Click the adjacent cell, then click the button to open the Select Unit Set
window, choose the required unit set and click OK.
To select a Symbol Set Click the adjacent cell, then click on the button to open the drop down menu
and select the required set.
Activate the New Network icon, click on the Networks tab in the Networks pane and click on your
chosen project.
Or alternatively, right click on your chosen project and select New Network.
When you click on New Network, the network is added to the project and highlighted as New Network
Name. You can now enter a name for your network.
Creating a network will also open the network‟s properties window in the lower pane and open the
Network window.
You have now created a new network. As with Projects, you can see and modify a Network‟s properties in
the lower pane:
To give a Description to the network, click on the adjacent cell to display a button and then click on the
button to open the Description window. Once you have entered a Description, click OK.
To set a Simulation Type Filter, click on the adjacent cell to open the drop down menu and select the
required filter.
Moving a Network
Networks can be easily dragged between projects, you will find this useful when you are unpacking
networks (see Pack/ Unpack section).
2.2.2 Catalogues
Flowmaster files all database elements in Catalogues, from components to curves and surfaces.
From the Catalogues pane, you can click, drag and drop
components from the Components catalogue directly onto
the Schematic View pane to quickly build your network. The
components are classified in sub-catalogues, e.g. Bends,
Sources, Pipes.
When hovering over a specific component, its graphical representation in the Schematic View will appear
next to the cursor (exemplified with a pressure source seen here on the right):
If you want to add several components of the same type, you can use the components already placed on
the schematic. To do so, right click on the component in the schematic and select Copy (or choose the
Copy function from the toolbar). You can then drop the components multiple times by left clicking on the
schematic (or right click and select Paste).
2.3.2 Connections
You can also choose what type of connection you want, i.e. straight or orthogonal. To change the
connection type, right click on a node and select the desired connection type:
In the Schematic Toolbar at the top of your Flowmaster window you will find tools to:
show or hide the grid in the background of the Schematic View pane
snap the position of components and nodes to the grid after moving
mirror X-axis
mirror Y-axis
rotate clockwise
align horizontally
align vertically
insert comment
move text
display or suppress component name
display or suppress component ID
display or suppress node name
display or suppress node ID
In the Schematic Zoom & View Toolbar you will find tools to:
percentage zoom
zoom out
zoom in
zoom to fit
normal
network overview
pan
For more details on any of the above-mentioned tools, please refer to the Toolbars section in the
Flowmaster/Reference Help (which can be found in the Help menu, see also chapter 8).
2.3.4 Filter
When creating a network, the components are selected in the Components catalogue and then dragged
and dropped into the Schematic View pane of the Network window.
Clicking the Filter icon will hide all catalogues not containing drag-able
components, providing you with an intuitive and clear work area.
2.3.5 Palette
The Palette appears as a tab on the left hand side of the main work pane when
you open a network and automatically expands when you click on it. When you
click on a Catalogue, for instance Bends, all the available Bends will be displayed
in the Palette window and when you click on the tab, its name will change accordingly, as seen on right.
The Palette is particularly useful when you have a catalogue containing all the components that you use
in a network (the next section describes how such a catalogue can be created and populated). You can
easily select each component in turn without having to open each catalogue to select the required
components. Furthermore, when picking a component from the palette, it stays pinned to the cursor,
allowing multiple copies to be placed.
Exercise 1
This exercise will enable you to familiarize yourself with the GUI.
To get started, you need to create a Project and a Network, for help look back through this chapter.
Later in this chapter you will enter data, run a simulation and go through the different results options.
2.4 Network Views
The Network Views window can be found in the right hand work pane. This View enables you to set
component data, variable parameters, simulation data, run results and create reports. You can also track
the different steps of your project with the Audit Trail tool (see Chapter 9).
When you click on one of the tabs in the top pane, its properties are reflected in the lower pane. Selecting
individual items from a pane displays its properties. For example, selecting an item from the Data list will
display the input data sheet for that particular component or node.
The Data pane is used to collect components and nodes. When you select a component or a node, its
properties are displayed in the lower pane. The lower pane is used to set the data for selected
components and nodes.
When a component is placed onto the schematic or a node is created, they automatically get listed in the
Data pane. They also get numbered in their order of creation (with the distinction C for components and N
for nodes in front of the number).
Show the description of the analytical model for the selected component
The component search and collection dialogue is a powerful tool that gives you a wide range of criteria to
define your search and component selection:
The Replace the Seleced Component Type feature enables you to easily change specific or
groups of components in your network with a simple step-by-step methodology. This
functionality is discussed in more detail in Chapter 9 (Advanced GUI Capabilities).
When selecting a component from the list, the lower pane will
display the input data sheet for that component.
To enter a value for a variable, just click on the cell next to it.
A drop down menu will automatically appear allowing you to
choose a unit for that value. The default unit is the one that is
selected as such for that unit set:
Using the Toggle icon you can directly enter data for one specific variable, e.g. diameter, into
multiple components across component types.
Consider, for example, that you want to enter the diameter data into all the components in the collection
(only components in the collection will be considered when using this function) that have a diameter entry.
To do so, you have to select one of the components in the
collection that have a diameter field. You must then go to
the lower pane and tick the grey box next to the variable of
your choice, in this case Diameter:
Once you‟ve done this, select the Toggle icon to go to Multiple Component Edit view. This will list the
Diameter entry field for all the components in the collection that have such a field:
As you can see, the chosen variable is displayed in the Feature text field and all the components in the
collection containing a diameter entry are listed by component number. To get back to Single Component
Edit view, just click the Toggle icon again.
To copy a value from one component to another/ others, the first step is to tick the box next to the desired
value in the Copy column and then select the Copy icon in the top right of the lower pane.
This will open the Copy Features window where you can specify the copy function of your choice:
For example, if you want to copy the diameter from one pipe to the other, you can choose the Strict
matching (matches component type and data field name), but if you want to copy it over to both the pipe
and the swing-check valve, you can choose the Relaxed matching (only matches data field name i.e.
“Diameter”).
2.4.4 Selecting a Unit Set
To access the unit set window, go to Tools in the menu and select Units:
To create a new unit set, you must first create a copy of one of the six unit sets provided by Flowmaster.
To do so, select the unit set you want to copy, click Copy Unit Set and choose a name for your new unit
set.
In your new unit set, you can now add new units and change the default units. You can see the default
quantity for any given parameter in the Unit Quantity Defaults pane. If you click in the unit cell, two
buttons will appear, D and S:
In the bottom of the right hand pane, you have the possibility to add
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new units to a parameter. For instance, if you want to add m /h to the
Volumetric Flow Rate parameter, click on Add New. A new line will
appear where you can enter a symbol, a factor and an offset for your
new unit:
Once you have created a new catalogue, right click on it and select New and then, for example, curve:
The Curve window will now appear. Select the Factor Data button in the lower left pane of the Curve
window, it will open the Table Value Scaling Function window, which allows you to factor the x and y data:
To add a curve to a component, select the component you want to add the curve to and click on the cell
next to the appropriate entry in the input data sheet. Two new cells will appear:
The D stands for Display Item and if selected will open a window showing any curve that has already
been set for this variable.
The S stands for Select Item and is the one you must select to add a curve. This will open the Selection
From Catalogue window where you can then browse for the curve of your choice. These steps are the
same whether you want to include a curve, surface, pump curve or an equation.
Exercise 2
To practice, you can now create the following curve and place it in the My_Data folder:
Performance Data:
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X (m /s) Y (Bar)
0 0
0.1 0.1
0.2 0.22
0.4 0.55
0.7 1.2
1 2.3
To create a surface, proceed as for a curve, but choose Surface instead of Curve after selecting New.
However, there is a distinction between curves and pump curves (see Exercise 3).
Exercise 3
Create the pump curve below. Remember that before entering the data points for a pump curve, it is
important to (in this order):
1. Choose your Pump Characteristics, Head or Torque (in this example, Head).
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2. Enter a Reference Flow Rate and a Reference Head or Torque (in this example, X=0.85 m /s and
Y=50m).
3. Select Actual Values.
4. Enter your pump curve data.
5. Select Automatic from the Degree Fit drop down menu (just above the Pump Characteristic).
6. Click OK in the bottom right corner. Your curve is now created and saved.
Reference point:
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X=0.85 m /s
Y=50m
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X (m /s) Y (m) Rotation (Default)
0 69 +
0.07 68.9 +
0.25 68 +
0.5 65 +
0.67 59 +
0.85 50 +
1 39 +
1.1 23 +
1.15 12 +