Urbano Hydra connects AutoCAD drawing (detailed water distribution network design) with EPANET hydraulic calculation. EPANET calculation engine is built inside of Urbano Hydra which allows you to draw the network inside of AutoCAD, input all the parameters (such as elevations, water demands, pipe diameters and roughness, various coefficients, etc.) and perform single period (snapshot) hydraulic calculation. All the results are immediately available in your familiar AutoCAD user interface. You can also draw the network in Urbano Hydra, input all the parameters and export EPANET INP file which can then be opened with EPANET or any other hydraulic modelling software. In Urbano Hydra you can review all the calculated values using flexible data tables, you can show all the values in profiles and label all the elements in plan, you can draw piezometric lines, do thematic mappings, create various reports, etc.
With Urbano Hydra, you can draw and define the whole network in a matter of minutes. For the same amount of work, you would need hours or even days working in EPANET. Check the video below:
In EPANET and similar hydraulic modelling software it is not easy to draw water distribution network, assign all the parameters and prepare the model for hydraulic analysis. For example, in EPANET, you have to draw the junctions first, and then connect these junctions with pipe elements one by one. Then, to input elevations, water demands and other parameters, you have to click junction by junction and insert the values. The same process goes for pipe diameters, roughness and other pipe parameters. This can be very tedious and time-consuming task. Another major disadvantage of this type of software is that you cannot have digital terrain models (DTMs) inside and that you cannot define pipe elevations (inverts) easily, quickly and more precisely.
Urbano Hydra has its own digital terrain modeler (Urbano Terraform) but can also work with Civil 3D DTM surfaces or 3D Face objects created with any other software. This enables you direct and automatic input of terrain elevations in nodes (junctions) while drawing the network. If you don’t have DTM surface in your drawing, you can always input terrain elevations manually using flexible data tables or by using some other method (projection, interpolation, etc.). There are three main ways how you can create a water distribution network in Urbano Hydra. First one is by interactively drawing the network in plan (nodes (junctions, vertices) and pipes are drawn simultaneously). Second one is by converting plain AutoCAD elements such as lines, 2D and 3D polylines. The third way is by importing the network from external source (e.g. various SQL databases, ESRI Shapefiles, text files, INP files, LandXML).
In Urbano Hydra pipe invert (starting and ending pipe elevations) can be defined more easily and more precisely by using one of many interactive or automatic functions. You can define pipe invert (or pipe axis) to be on a constant depth below terrain, you can draw the pipe invert interactively in profiles, assign it numerically through flexible data tables or you can calculate it automatically based on defined rules. Automatic option will also optimize the number of inflection points that define positions of air release and mud release valves.
Urbano Hydra offers intelligent topology selections (nodes, sections, branches, arrays, from node to node in plan and profile, etc.). By using these selection options, data input for pipe diameters, roughness, water demands, and all other parameters is extremely easy and quick. All EPANET hydraulic equipment (reservoirs, tanks, pumps, valves, emitters) and all their parameters, curves and patterns can be assigned more easily and more quickly. Another main advantage is water demand calculations. Urbano Hydra offers various methods for inputting water demands. You can, of course assign point demands (node by node or same value to multiple nodes), but you can also define the number of inhabitants living on some area, water consumption per person per day and the software will automatically calculate and assign water demands to nodes.
In addition to all this functionality that speeds up and streamlines your work, Urbano Hydra also offers some great functionality that is not available in EPANET – water distribution network sizing using genetic algorithms (LINK), water demands scenario analysis and parallel hydraulic calculation (LINK), calculation of trench excavation and backfill layer volumes, detail design in plan and profiles, plotting of the profiles, BIM functionality (3D, additional data definition, import and export to various standard file formats including IFC, LandXML, Navisworks NWC, ESRI Shapefile, EPANET INP, various SQL databases and text files) and many other things. Check the video below:
Rino Nemarnik
Head of development at StudioARS
Urbano Hydra works on Autodesk AutoCAD, Map3D and Civil3D 2015-2020.
To watch more videos about Urbano Hydra please go here.
To watch more videos about Urbano software please go to our official YouTube channel.
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