Chutes and No Ladders – Using Inventor
Professional’s Tube and Pipe For Facilities Design
Mike Jolicoeur
Field Product Manager, Factory Design Suite
© 2012 Autodesk
Class Summary

You have a new process going into a facility
 You know what equipment you need for it
 You have the 3D assets and have placed them
 There needs to be large conduits connecting things together
 There are pipes in proximity to my design and I want to avoid them
 How can I create and represent these….

Quickly
 Accurately
 Easily
© 2012 Autodesk
Learning Objectives
At the end of this class, you will know:
 When to use Inventor Tube and Pipe, (and when not to)
 Techniques for using Pipe Generator to create Factory Assets
 When to use Tube and Pipe in layout context
 How to create a drawing of your pipe run with a BOM
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Use Cases
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Common sites in facilities….
Connection piping must
go through here
This connects two assets
together
My design must fit under
here
This connects an asset to
a building system
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Considerations

What does the piping or ductwork
represent?

Is it existing building geometry? (an
obstacle you have to work around)

Is it new geometry? (new pipes that will
be an obstacle for others)

Am I responsible for installing it? (does it
require fab drawings and a BOM?)
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What to use?
For overall system design,
Inventor is NOT the tool to
use.
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What to use?
For overall system design,
use Revit MEP or Plant 3D.
Rule of thumb – If the drawing requires a piping schedule, don’t use Inventor.
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What to use?
For systems component
design, however, Inventor
works well.
For rapidly building 3D
representations Inventor
works well.
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Building piping components
DEMONSTRATION
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Tips and Takeaways

Use skeletons to aid in route creation

Create your own pipe style and size accordingly

Derive the assembly before creating as an asset

Break the link!!!!
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More about pipe styles…. (Rigid Piping)
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More about pipe styles…. (Tubing)
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Piping or Tubing – which should I use?
• Tubing works well for creating piping that may be obstacles
to work around
• It performs better as there are not components to deal with
• Piping works well for creating piping that needs a bill of
material and cut list
• Piping works well in critical fit areas where the dimensions of
the flanges etc may interfere
© 2012 Autodesk
Creating your own piping fittings

Piping fittings can be made from any Inventor part
 Changeable ones are iParts
 Simple workflow
 Tip… Copy one from the standard library and modify to suit
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Using the style to populate a layout
DEMONSTRATION
And create an installation drawing
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Tips and Takeaways

Make sure your assets have something to connect to

Let Inventor do the hard work

Leverage the standard library to develop your own fittings

Bills of materials are easy to get
© 2012 Autodesk
Questions?
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Call To Action
Please do the survey!!!
Feedback
Your product ideas – autodesk.com/fds_ideastation
 Discussion groups – autodesk.com/discussiongroup-factorydesignsuite
 Email Feedback – fds.feedback@autodesk.com

Beta Recruiting
FDS Beta – fds.beta.feedback@autodesk.com
 Process Simulation – labs.autodesk.com/utilities/process_sim

© 2012 Autodesk
Autodesk, AutoCAD* [*if/when mentioned in the pertinent material, followed by an alphabetical list of all other trademarks mentioned in the material] are registered trademarks or trademarks of Autodesk, Inc., and/or its subsidiaries and/or affiliates in the USA and/or other countries. All other brand names, product names, or trademarks belong to their respective holders. Autodesk reserves the right to alter product and
services offerings, and specifications and pricing at any time without notice, and is not responsible for typographical or graphical errors that may appear in this document. © 2012 Autodesk, Inc. All rights reserved.
© 2012 Autodesk