View Menu - Graphical Pressure Display

Summary

The Graphical Pressure Display tool in HydraCALC offers a visual representation of pressure losses within the fire sprinkler system. This tool helps users quickly identify where significant pressure drops are occurring. For the tool to function correctly, the Input Type column in the System Piping tab must be populated. This column designates the role of each pipe in the system and is automatically filled if the project originated from AutoCAD or Revit via AutoCalc, or if the system was built using HydraCALC-Sizer.

How Do I Use Graphical Pressure Display?

HydraCALC has a special tool to help you figure out where in your system losses are occurring. The Graphical Pressure Display is that tool.

In order to use it, the column named Input Type needs to be filled in.

This column specifies the role of each pipe in the system. It is filled in automatically if the job came via AutoCalc from AutoCAD or Revit. It is also filled in if it was built using HydraCALC-Sizer.

Filling in this column does not affect the calculation in any way. The Num. of Hds. column does not need to be filled out to use this tool.

This tool shows exactly where the losses occur in your system. Note the color-coded relationship between the graph and the individual items listed at left. In this case, say we needed a 10-pound cushion. With only a 6.3-pound cushion right now, it would not make sense to increase the riser nipple size, since they are only losing 1.97 pounds in total.

Another special feature of this tool is the ability to change items in your input directly from here. To change the K-Factors of all the heads, or to simply see if changing them will help, hover over the E.H.Press (End Head Pressure) item at left and click on it.

Notice the list of K-Factors on the left and the End Head Pressures on the right. This list of Ks comes from the choices found in the right-click menu of the K-Factor field on the Input Screen. You will see a list of all the Ks and what the end head pressure would be if you used them. Some of these will be in red. The red indicates that if you use that K-factor, the end head pressure will be below the minimum and have to be boosted up to 7 psi (0.5 bar).

If you select a K-factor you will be asked if you want to convert all the Ks already in the calculation to that new one. Say yes and it will be done for you.