Duct leakage not kept through different stages

[Alejandro Roman]

Good morning all, 

 

I'm working with Ventsim Design, Full License, Version 5.1.2.9. While modelling a project with several stages, the duct leakage chosen in the creation stage is not being kept in the other stages where that vent duct appears.

 

This is the Edit chart that appears when clicking on the duct:

 

This is the Edit chart of the same duct in other stages:

And if after clicking on the Leakage porosity button, this error message appears. 

 

Any ideas on how can I keep the same settings for the vent ducts along different stages? 

 

Cheers,

Alejandro Roman 

[Martin Griffith]

Hi Alejandro, 

Thanks for the report. 

I've had a look and there are two separate issues here. The unhandled exception you see is a bug with the Leakage Porosity button. We'll fix that and then make a Ventsim Minor Release within in the next few days. I'll let you know when it's uploaded to our website. 

The other issue is the disabling of the Leakage dropdown menu when you open the Duct Edit box from other stages. In Ventsim, leakage from ducts is modelled by adding extra connections between the duct and its airway. You can see the leakage paths by switching to Wireframe mode, by pressing the Solids-Wireframe toggle near the top left of the viewer ("w"-key for shortcut). When you create the duct, the duct and duct leakages should appear in the same stages as the airway that you're building from, unless you've locked changes to the current stage. 

The reason the leakage dropdown would be disabled is that before opening the Duct Edit box, you only had ducts selected and no leakage paths. Normally when you build a duct, the ducts and the leakage are grouped together. This grouping should work across stages. Before opening the Duct Edit box, switch to Wireframe view and check that the duct and the leakages are selected. 

If the leakage paths are not there, then you will have to delete and rebuild the duct. If they are there, but unselected, then select them before opening the Duct Edit box. 

I hope this helps; if you still have problems, then please send me the model via messages, along with the steps taken to produce the issue and we will work out what is going on. 

Regards, 

Martin

[Martin Griffith]

Hi, 

For the exception associated with the Leakage Porosity button on the Duct Edit form, we've uploaded a fix for VentSim version 5.1.3.4, which can be found here:

http://www.ventsim.com/download/minor-releases/

[Martin Griffith]

The problem of duct leakages disappearing between stages can result from how the ducts were initially built. If you want to build a duct on one stage only, the best way to do it is to lock the current stage, build the duct, and then unlock the stage. The lock/unlock stage button can be found here:

The other option is to build the duct, then go to the stage where you don't want the duct, lock the stage, delete the duct, do an Air Simulation, and then unlock the stage. 

Generally, where possible, it is best to avoid using the Edit Box to modify the ducts, and instead use the Construct Duct Box