Tribon to CAEPIPE

Input File: Tribon Neutral File (.n)

Output File: CAEPIPE Model File (.mbf)

PD2CAEPIPE™, the Interface from Piping Design to CAEPIPE, is a stand-alone program for transferring pipe geometry including section properties from AVEVA’s TRIBON to SST’s Pipe Stress Analysis software CAEPIPE.

sst tribon to caepipe translator model as seen in tribon graphic image 1

sst tribon to caepipe translator model as seen in caepipe after conversion graphic image 2

PD2CAEPIPE Interface converts the TRIBON Outfitting piping model into an intermediate neutral file. Material specifications used in TRIBON are then compared against the Mapping Database that are provided along with the PD2CAEPIPE Interface to identify the corresponding CAEPIPE materials. These materials are merged with the intermediate neutral file to generate the CAEPIPE Batch Input file (.mbf), which, in turn is, converted to the input file .mod in binary format.

The execution sequence is as follows.

sst tribon to caepipe translator flowchart illustrating translation execution sequence

The interface consists of two parts.

1. Python program to identify the pipelines in TRIBON Outfitting and to create an intermediate neutral file.
2. PD2KP.EXE file to convert the intermediate neutral file to batch input file, recognized by CAEPIPE.

sst tribon to caepipe translator model as seen in tribon graphic image 3

sst tribon to caepipe translator model as seen in caepipe after conversion graphic image 4

Salient Features

  • Uses forms and menus to input the name of the input file and identify the branches in TRIBON Outfitting to be added in the network for transferring to CAEPIPE.
  • Transfers the geometry of the pipe(s) routed in TRIBON Outfitting to CAEPIPE.
  • Interface does not require that all pipelines be stored under one hierarchy. They can even be part of different systems.
  • Transfers pipe section properties and names them automatically in CAEPIPE.
  • Transfers temperature and pressure of the pipes assigned in TRIBON Specification DB to CAEPIPE. Each such unique combination of temperature and pressure will be treated as a load in CAEPIPE.
  • Treats control valves as valve element in CAEPIPE.
  • Transfers multi-way components like 3-way valve, 4-way valve and cross with a simple node point at the origin of these elements.
  • Allows the user to choose the vertical direction for CAEPIPE, i.e., the vertical direction in TRIBON Outfitting (Z) can be made as either 'Y' or 'Z' in CAEPIPE.

This interface has been tested on a TRIBON project with various complexities. It is also tested with different Regional Settings. The neutral files and the corresponding .mbf of CAEPIPE are included in the evaluation copy download.