Discover how to create branch lines and connect them to the main system in your piping plan. This article provides a step-by-step tutorial on mirroring existing pipe systems, setting properties, aligning pipes, and using tools such as 'trim extend' and 'cap open ends' for a successful sprinkler layout.
Key Insights
- The first step in creating a branch line involves saving your work and accessing the piping plan from the floor plans. With the right diameter and middle elevation set, you can place the pipe anywhere on the layout.
- A crucial part of mirroring an existing pipe system is alignment. By using the 'align tool', you can ensure your pipes line up with the branch lines on the other side of the building. Multiple alignment should be unchecked when aligning one piece at a time.
- Connecting the branch lines to the main can be done in various ways, but two particularly effective methods involve dragging the piece to the desired location or using the 'trim extend' tool. It's essential to ensure the connection is an outlet, welded to the piece of main and connected with a coupling.
Note: These materials offer prospective students a preview of how our classes are structured. Students enrolled in this course will receive access to the full set of materials, including video lectures, project-based assignments, and instructor feedback.
Now that we've laid out the sprinklers in our mini project area, let's get started on drawing out some pipe. So first, let's save, and let's go to our floor plans, level one, piping plan. Remember, our reflected ceiling plan we only show the sprinkler locations, and our piping plans we show the pipe and sprinklers.
If we zoom in here, this is the area where we laid out our sprinklers, and now we're going to be creating our branch lines. And essentially, we'll be able to mirror what we've done on this side of the building already. If we look at some of the branch lines, let's click on this one.
We can see it's one and a half inch diameter, it's 12 feet above finished floor, and it's set to fire protection outlets. So let's get started. We'll go to system and pipe, and under properties, it's currently at T's, so we can choose outlets if you don't have it already.
And we want to set our diameter to one and a half inch, and our middle elevation of 12 feet is just fine. And we can go on ahead and set it anywhere, we'll just drop it about right here. Now if we look at the other side, we can see there are one, two, three branch lines that connect into the main over here.
So let's go on ahead and copy what we just created. We'll click on our pipe, go to copy, and again we don't have to worry about this exact placement, so we'll bring one about right here, and another one maybe right here. Okay, now we can use the align tool and make sure that they line up with the branch lines on the other side.
Learn Construction
- Nationally accredited
- Create your own portfolio
- Free student software
- Learn at your convenience
- Authorized Autodesk training center
So let's use the keyboard shortcut AL, and I'll select this one, and this one. If you have multiple alignment checked, make sure it's unchecked, because we're only going to do one piece at a time. With alignment still open, I'm going to select on this pipe, and this one.
And finally, this pipe, and this one. Now we have to connect these into our main over here, so there are a few ways we can do that. First, we can click on this piece, and we can drag it all the way down like we did before.
And you can see our connection here is an outlet, which is what we want. It's welded to this piece of main and connected with the coupling. Now we can click on this one here.
We can use instead, under modify pipes, which we have open after selecting this pipe, we can click on trim extend. So let's click that. First, let's click on our main, and now let's click on our branch line.
And we can see we've connected right there with our outlet. Let's do the same thing again here. Let's click on our main, and let's click on our branch line.
And there we go. Now, if you drew your main too short, you would have to extend this before that. This is roughly okay.
So for now, I'm going to cap this, since I don't need any more run of this main. Now, there's another section of the building we'll work on later, and we'll reroute that main later on. But for now, let's click on this, and we have modify pipes open.
Click on cap open ends, and now this portion of the main is capped. The next thing to do is we also have some of our sprinklers down here. So let's draw our branch lines in this location.
Again, let's go to system and pipe. We have it at one and a half inch. That's perfectly okay.
And for all of these heads here, we're just going to have one branch line that connects everything. So this time, we can select the piece of main first, somewhere around here. You don't want your outlets back to back on a main.
You want some distance. So let's move it to about right here. And let's draw and connect it to about a little past the sprinkler.
Okay, and now we're already connected to our main there. All right, let's go on ahead and hit save. And in the next video, we'll continue and connect our sprinklers to the arm overs.
