In this video we show how to configure water meters for your use in your water supply network in buildings designs.
As you know, the water meter, given its hydromechanical characteristics, is an element that can lead to a significant head loss.
That is why, through the configuration from the Meters Manager, you must specify the way in which the program will calculate the corresponding head losses.
Continuing with the presentation of the characteristics to be included in PLUMBER’S Version 4.0, we will now show you how to evaluate the effect of using water meters in the calculation and design of plumbing networks.
So, once you have made the configuration of the design and calculation parameters for the water meters in your project, you have everything set to include them in the corresponding networks.
In this project we have loaded the example of a Multifamily Housing published on our website for version 3 of the program.
And, for the case of the typical water network of each apartment, we want to include a water meter at the outlet of the connection to the Riser pipeline.
First of all, to see the change in the automatic calculation of the required pressure at the entrance, let’s click the Calculate button.
We see that the required pressure for the most unfavorable sanitary fixture operation is about 7 meters of water column.
Let’s now modify the network to include a water meter at this point.
First, I will insert a node in this pipe section, so I click the button and click on the point of interest.
I delete this pipe section and from the Devices panel of the PROJECT tab, I click the water Meter button
Note the message in the status bar, where you are asked to select the start and end nodes, just like when you draw pipes.
So, I started from the Riser and finished at node five, the water meter’s discharge point.
Notice that the water Meter symbol now appears in order to differentiate it in the drawings.
Keep in mind that, really, the meter in general will have the same properties as any pipe, as we see here.
You can, in any case, set if the diameter is automatically defined or not, based on what you have specified in the meter configuration, activating or deactivating this box.
It is also possible to include, if you consider so, other accessories to the section for the purposes of the head loss calculation by the equivalent length method or for the final materials list of the water network.
Well, we have everything ready to see what the changes are, in terms of required pressure at the network’s source, when a water meter is placed in it.
So, I click the calculate button to see the new pressure value, in this case 14. About 7 meters more than those required in the condition without the water meter.
Indeed, if we go to the data of the pipe section…
We see that the loss through the meter is five with thirty meters.
In this case, as we see in the Water Meters Manager…
The quadratic formula is used to define the head loss.
And we see that the diameter has been selected based on the flow rate, 1.19 liters per second, less than the nominal flow for the nominal diameter of 19 millimeters.
As we mentioned in the previous video, you may control the diameter selection in response to a maximum head loss, activating this box.
Let’s suppose we want to obtain the diameter so that the head loss does not exceed 5 meters of water column.
Click OK to close the dialog and perform the calculation and design once more…
We see then that the selected diameter is now 25 mm.
And that, of course, the head loss in the water meter is less than 5 meters. Just like we had preconfigured.
You can thus easily include and design water meters in your projects of water supply facilities in buildings with PLUMBER Version 4.