Ventsim 5.4.4.0 Released!

[Martin Griffith]

We've just released Ventsim DESIGN 5.4.4.0.

You may be prompted to upgrade the next time you open Ventsim. You can also download the installer directly from our website: https://ventsim.com/download/currentdownloads/

Among many bug fixes and minor improvements, the following is a list of features you might find useful.

Thank you to everyone who has logged issues on the forum and sent us emails though the support email, we're very appreciative. Many of the improvements we make to Ventsim come from users getting in contact with us about what they'd like to see. So if you have any problems with anything or have feedback or suggestions of what you'd like to see in Ventsim, please get in contact!

Add Howden Fan

We’ve added a new feature with which you can directly look up a database of Howden Fans. On the Fan database form, just click the Add Howden Fan and you have access to dozens of fan curves. We’ll be adding more soon.

Convert To Overpass

Many users have been making use of the new Construct Overpass Tool. One request we’ve had is for an option to convert an existing overpass intersection to an overpass. We’ve now added this option below the existing option. Just select the airway to convert and click on Convert to Overpass.

Orientation Axis

We’ve added a standard CAD feature to the view in Ventsim, some orientation arrows. These aren’t on automatically though. Go to Settings | Graphics | Rendering | Show the Orientation Arrows and switch to Yes to show them.

Export All Monitor Data

We introduced an option to Export All Monitor Data at once. This will put on the clipboard data from every Dynamic Monitor in your model. You’ll see the data format if you paste it into Excel. Let us know if this is useful to you or if you’d want a different format to the data.

Visibility Manager Layout

Some users like to have the Visibility Manager open all the time. Now you can customize its shape, depending on how you like to display it.

Underground Fan Shock Loss – Automatic option

For fans at the surface, Ventsim automatically handles shock loss from the fan discharge (using fan discharge area, evase), but one question that has been coming up is how Ventsim handles shock loss from underground fans installed in bulkheads. The answer is that this is not automatically handled by Ventsim. If you want to consider this shock loss, it’s tricky to add. With this version we’ve added an option to automatically add the shock loss from underground fans, calculating it from the fan discharge area and the area of the airway the fan is venting into. To enable it, check the box on the Fans information page in the Fan Database. Any shock added will be viewable in the Fan Info box on the Edit Box as Fan Losses.

Stage Graph

From the Edit Box, go to Tools | Open Stage Graph, to generate a graph of 2 parameters on an airway across the stages.

Utilisation Factor

The Heat, Moisture and Diesel Presets now have an inbuilt Utilisation Factor you can edit. This means that you can enter, for example, the maximum power of a truck and directly enter your utilisation factor, instead of accounting for it directly in the truck power and noting it in the title. (Alternatively, leave it at 1 if you prefer to keep using it as you are!)

Activity Track Graphics

If you’re a fan of using lots of Activity Tracks and Stages in your model, then you’ve probably seen a few weird things happen with the display of the ribbons representing the Tracks. We’ve fixed them now, so that the offset of the Track with its airways is based on the visible airways, so ribbons should always appear above the airways.