Drawing vertical rectangular ducts

[kevinbrighton@bigpond.com]

Is there a way to constrain rectangular ducts when drawing vertically, to prevent uncontrolled rotation about the axis?

[Martin Griffith]

Hi, 

Thanks for getting in contact.

Can you please give us some more information: Are you using Ventsim DESIGN or Ventsim HVAC? What method are you using to draw the duct when this happens? Is it possible to get a screenshot of the problem?

[kevinbrighton@bigpond.com]

Thanks Martin.

Attached is an example, the vertical duct simulates air flow through a penetration in the concrete slab above. When trying to draw it vertically, it has no rotational constraint so getting alignment is very difficult. I'm usually able to fluke it by a combination of adding ducts to the free end and using end edit. It's always time consuming. I recognise it doesn't matter a hoot from a simulation point of view, but makes presentations messy if it's not right. I'm using Ventsim, maybe HVAC would be better?

Best regards

 

Kevin Brighton.

[Martin Griffith]

Hi Kevin,

I think I understand now. You want the vertical sections to have the same alignment. 

When you have sections with different alignement, can you check, do they have the same width and height? If you swap the width and height does it fix it? 

Normally, when you draw a new airway it will inherit the properties of the airway you are starting from. So the only thing I can think of is that the airway is inheriting the width and height around the wrong way. Is this what is happeining?

If not, perhaps you could send us the model, if possible, and I'll try to recreate what you are seeing.

 

[kevinbrighton@bigpond.com]

Here's one from the archives, with all fans and ducting removed. It's simulating an underground excavation, the vertical sections are access shafts. If you pick either of the vertical sections and try and edit the end, it looses orientation.

I know Ventsim was developed for mines, but it is used in civil construction so some user needs are a little different.

Thanks for your help.

Test.vsm

[Martin Griffith]

Just an update: We are still working on this. It looks like we will need to add a feature to be able to do what you want. We'll give you another update soon about what we do. 

[Craig Christensen]

Hi Kevin,

We have added a new feature in the latest minor release that can be found here: https://ventsim.com/download/minor-releases/  in version 5.4.3.5

An example of how it works:

In the Metal Mine demo model, this airway here might want to be rotated to look neater (I think this is what you are looking for):

There is a new property on the airway called Rotation.  If we set that to a value we can spin the airway around on it's axis to make it look neater:

The angle or rotation can be a negative or positive value.  

The result of adjusting that looks like this with the airway now appearing more square with it's connecting airways:

Hopefully that is the kind of thing you are trying to achieve!

Regards,

Craig

[Kingsley Hortin]

That's really helpful. Good job Ventsim team and thanks to Kevin for articulating a frustration that has arisen for me at times.

[kevinbrighton@bigpond.com]

Awesome thank you team for making that happen, it will reduce a source of frustration for sure.

Best regards,

Kevin.