Plant 3d vs inventor vs ?

[Anonymous]

Hi,

I'm currently looking for new software to model piping.

Some example projects are:

- Heat exchanger skids

- Connecting multiple tanks to each other

- Connecting a tank from 1 building to another

- Place blower fans on a roof and connect them to a motor

The programs i was thinking of are:

- Inventor

- Solidworks

- Plant 3d

I was wondering if anyone could advice me in choosing one of these programs or maybe give an alternative.

- Robin

[Anonymous]

Personally, I would recommend Plant 3D for facility / plant piping that needs to be spec driven and isos generated.  If the skids have piping, then I would use Inventor Professional and model the equipment with the piping, then place that inventor assembly in the facility / plant model to connect it to tanks, etc.  If you are designing the equipment, as in generating fabrication drawings of it, Inventor is definitely the way to go for that, and then bring that equipment into Plant (after it has been simplified, of course).  If you are not generating fabrication drawings of the equipment, you may be able to just generate those as 3D objects in Plant 3D and use the one application.  As for Solidworks... I am biased so I will not comment on that application.  I will just say that Autodesk has everything you need for this type of work.

[TomislavGolubovic]

What deliverables do you need to produce? If Iso's then Plant3D, if not, then still either Plant or Inventor

[Anonymous]

I agree with the other comments. For skids and small plant design Inventor will give you good fabrication drawings and even allow for FEA in Inventor Professional. If however you need ISO for pipe fabrication I would recommend Plant as the pcf output from Inventor is not nearly as good. The two solutions are not mutually exclusive, and I for one have used both side by side very successfully.

Again as the previous chap stated I am biased towards Autodesk solutions and as such could not comment on Solidworks. For myself the key to Autodesk versus any others is a one stop shop and total data continuity.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the advice so far.

If I interpret your comments correctly this would be my summary:

The type of fabrication drawing is decisive

ISO -> 3d plant

Non iso -> Inventor

Besides that: inventor and 3d plant will work very well together. 

Inventor will be used for de detailed modeling and 3d plant for the plant overview.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

For some new advice:

I'm not sure which kind of fabrication drawings a piping factory expects from me. 

- ISO (stick models?)

- non ISO (full piping models)

- ....more options?

When is an ISO drawing more usefull then a non-ISO drawing?

What is more common?

[dgorsman]

Those questions don't have cut and dried answers - they can depend heavily on where the work is.

Spool fabrication shops prefer traditional piping isometrics.  They normally redraw the pipe runs in dedicated spool construction software like ACORN or SPOOLGEN anyways, but can save some time if you can provide accurate PCF files that they can import as a starting point.

Fabrication shops, especially those dealing with skid mounted or package type modules, tend to prefer models over drawings.  Depending on their software of choice you may be able to send a project as-is, but you may need to send neutral format files such as IGES or STP.  Like spool shops they may prefer traditional iso's and PCFs for pipe runs, but its common for them to not do any traditional iso's at all when using Inventor, CATIA, or Solidworks.

Clients requirements vary wildly, sometimes depending on when a project was started.  Some only want a functional, data-rich model but in a specific program and version; others only want issued GA drawings and only want "throw away" iso's for construction support; others want both GA's and iso's signed and issued.  More frequently they're wanting models from Navisworks or similar software for review purposes.

Field construction wants paper drawings; typically this is GA's for site-assembly plus iso's for use as punch-lists and marking up when something doesn't work right.  They're also getting on the Navisworks train - we have site photos from several projects where someone has printed out color screenshots and taped them up so the crew can see what it should look like.

Short version is - at the START of the project determine what the deliverables and requirements are.  That includes program and version, data/file types and version, what the client requires, what the fabricator requires (if you're doing the "M" side of EPCM), and so on.