Lap Joint bolts are long when connecting to Lugged valves

[richard_santiago]

Lap Joint bolts are long when connecting to Lugged valves.

Lugged valves joined with blind flange - bolts (cap screws) lengths are correct. Lap joints joined with lugged valves ignore the lugged bolts length and place a standard (calculated) bolt. I tried placement while in debug mode and my programming is weak. In the past we have manually fixed the iso's and BOM's and do not want duplicated this effort again.

Any advice is welcome (switching to Plant 3D is not a option yet),

Richard Santiago

[tkmashl]

How far off is the value? Which version of aplant are you using? It will use the routine "waferblt.ebs" to calculate the bolt length.

TKM

[richard_santiago]

Tkmashl,
Thanks for responding to this post.

waferblt.ebs adds NutLen, StubThk; lugged valves require cap screws (no nut). The value is off (NutLen + BoltXs) which is close to standard machine bolt or stud bolt lengths. We are running AutoPLANT V8i (SELECTseries 3).

Modifications to waferblt.ebs:

'////////////////////////////
'// RAS Jan 2012
'// Changed the long description of wafer bolts & changed w/nuts to W/HVY HEX NUTS
'// changed W/HVY HEX NUTS to MATL_DESCR
'////////////////////////////

'// ModDesc = BoltCatalog & " " & BoltRating & " " & BoltFacing & " " & BoltCount & " - " & BoltDiamStr & " X " & BoltLenStr & " " & BoltShortDesc
'// ModDesc = BoltShortDesc & " " & BoltCount & " - " & BoltDiamStr & " X " & BoltLenStr & " W/HVY HEX NUTS"

ModDesc = BoltShortDesc & " " & BoltCount & " - " & BoltDiamStr & " X " & BoltLenStr & " " & MATL_DESCR

From test model:
Close description with lugged valve and blind flange: Bolt Cap Screw 8 - 3/4" X 2 3/8" (the length should be 2 1/4” – could be BoltXs, have not looked at this yet)
Incorrect description with lugged valve and Lap joint flg: Bolt Cap Screw 8 - 3/4" X 4 1/2"
Correct description with Lap joint flg and Lap joint flg: Bolt Stud 8 - 3/4" X 4 1/2" W/HVY Hex Nuts

Richard

[tkmashl]

You have to define the value that you are calling MATL_DESCR, similar to the line that reads "Dim BoltCatalog As String" then call it from the component data similar to this line "Status = at_Component_getString(BoltCatalog, FastenerID, "CATALOG")"

I think there are a few steps you have to go thru to get a new field to come thru in your piping table from the catalogs.

It might be easier to replace the MATL_DESC back to read "W/HVY HEX NUTS"

TKM

[richard_santiago]

Tkmashl,

MATL_DESCR is defined (DIM) (we have been using the same code in boltlen.ebs with no problems). The bolting descriptions work.

Please find the attached…
You notice on the third image, the cap screw connecting to the valve is incorrect, whereas the connection to the blind flange is correct.

Richard

[awerning]

With your descriptions you have two options:
1) Make the short description field in your spec contain all the unique info between the two bolts (i.e. "Bolt Cap Screw" and "Bolt Stud W/HVY Hex Nuts") and then have one common description builder in your waferblt.ebs file (i.e. <short_descr> + <size stuff>).
2) Run an "if...then" statement on the class of bolt that is being processed and then use one description build vs the other (i.e. if "Stud" then <short_descr> + <size stuff> + <w/ Hex Nuts> else "Machine" then <short_descr> + <size stuff> )

As far as making your bolt lengths correct, there was a good discussion of how Bentley kind of missed the boat on how they calculate the lengths here (http://www.davetyner.com/forum/showthread.php?1811-Possible-Waferblt.ebs-fix&highlight=waferblt.ebs). Check out the last few posts in that thread. It might solve the lengths issue all together. It is a slightly different philosophy though than what comes out-of-box in the specs. You may need to check that the bolt_length field in your specs are all set according to your client standard lengths. The good thing is, this method is much more reliable and consistent.