component weights

[clarson]

I am struggling with an accurate and easy to maintain method for putting weights into pipe specs. In the past our approach was to build catalogs for all the material and schedule combinations that we use. We populated the weight field for every entry. This has resulted in very large and difficult to maintain catalogs. I thought it would be a better approach to build catalogs based on ASME standards for the dimensional information. The catalogs would have no reference to material, schedule or weight. The material and schedule can be brought into the spec by look up tables. The problem is the weight! I thought I could create another field for volume and do a post process operation after the spec is created to populate the weight field in the spec by multiplying the material density x volume. The problem with this is that volume is difficult to determine at the catalog level on some fittings especially when the schedule varies.

Is my approach completely wrong? How are others handling weight?

[tkmashl]

How are you structuring your catalogs? I think that if you go to the effort to put the data in the catalog once, then you wouldn't have to use a lookup table to populate the appropriate field in the spec.

TKM

[clarson]

my idea was to build catalogs that only had the dimensional data as found in the ansi/asme standards. Schedule, material and weight would not be included in the catalog. Those fields would be built using specgen through lookup tables.The long description is build in specgen using the fields from the lookup tables. it is simple do do this for schedule and material, but not easy for weight. This approach is an attempt to simplify our catalogs and only have the dimensional data in one place. Our original catalogs have become unmanageable after years converting from previous versions and adding so many combinations of schedules and materials. Some dimensional errors have been found making it very hard to sift through and make corrections.

[andersun]

for what you're doing and asking, I would take your large catalog, create several catalogs containing only 2 schedules per. ie. sch 5-10, sch std- 40, sch xs - 80....
this would allow for easier control and management, smaller sizes, and could be filtered in the spec's by using the catalog name. you already have the information its a copy, rename and delete job.

[clarson]

That is a good suggestion but not exactly what i was looking for. i was hoping to have single entry for dimensional information rather than creating multiple copies of the same records just to accommodate different schedules.

[Aplant Monkey]

doubt AutoPlant would be able to work that way. Interesting idea but I don't think it is practical with AutoPlant.