Designating Exclusion Zone Around Sprinkler Heads for Clash Detection

So, you want to have an area carved out around sprinkler heads so that other trades don't impinge on your space (yeah, good luck with that!) but aren't sure how. Well, It's pretty easy - what you need to do is to edit some of our sprinkler heads and basically draw a 'cylinder' around them.

HydraCAD's default 3D head folder is \HES\HydraCAD\Ver50\Programs\Heads\3dHeads. All of our stock 3D heads are in this folder.

1. In AutoCAD/HydraCAD, open one of those heads (In this case, I opened 3DHead1). Immediately save it with a different drawing name, in order to reduce the chance that you will break the original. In this case I am using SaveAs to name it 3dHead1-WithClearance.

The next step is to create an object around the head which will act as needed. While there is more than one way to do this, the best way is to draw a circle at the needed distance from the head. Why circles and not something fancier like an actual Cylinder? Circles are relatively 'light' space wise and won't bog your drawing down. This means they are lean and mean when it comes to display time and drawing size.

2. Switch to the INTERFERENCE Layer. If this layer does not exist, simply create it with a color of White.

3a. Start the CIRCLE command. Pick the Center Osnap and pick the Center of the sprinkler throat as the center point of the circle.

3b. Pick on the Diameter option and type in 24 for a 2' exclusion zone.

This results in a circle thusly:

4a. Give the circle some depth (thickness) so that it can form a 'barrier'. Select it, right click and pick Properties

4b. Set the Thickness to -6. This makes the extrusion go downward from the origin point. If this were an upright head, you might enter (+)6 instead

This results in:

5. Lastly, this cylinder must be converted to a Surface so that Navis can recognize it as a solid. Type in CONVTOSURFACE and pick the cylinder.

Resulting in:

6. After the head is saved, it must be assigned to a sprinkler head type in the drawing. This is done in the Sprinkler Setup command in the Definition screen - Choose 3D Head Block

Once the model is raised to 3D in HydraCAD this 'zone' will appear as such:

And in Navis, like this:

Comments

[George Ali Blackburn]

Art, is it possible to post this block somewhere with the obstruction already setup?