Working With the Cut
If the pipe relationship can find a valid cut plane, it will display a dashed plane indicating the location and orientation of the cut plane.
Typically, the next step is to create a frame on the cut, which can then be laid off on the real pipe for cutting. This involves making the pro- posed cut, then constructing a frame on the cut plane. The XY plane of this frame now defines the perfect cut location on the pipe. Watch windows can be used to lay this cut off on the real pipe.
In some applications, it may be desirable to simply calculate the cuts and lay them all off at once, as described above. This would be a faster but less stringent approach. A more rigorous approach would involve laying off the cuts on one segment, performing the cuts on the actual pipe, then measuring the actual cut plane.
Once the actual cut plane is measured, a coordinate frame can be constructed that represents the location of the as-built cut. This as- built cut location can then be fed back into the pipe relationship, and the as-built cut can be used to tweak the alignment once more. After the alignment is further tweaked, a new tweaked cut plane can be laid off on the other pipe segment.
This process can be iterated, as desired, for each pair of pipe segments.
To Lay Off Cut Planes:
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Once the relationship has been solved, double-click the pipe relation- ship in the tree. In the Cut section, ensure that “Valid Cut Avail- able” is indicated.
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Click the Edit button in the Cut section for one of the pipe segments. In the Pipe Cut Properties dialog, click the Make Proposed Cut button.
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With the cut applied, click the Create Frame on CUT button to to create a coordinate frame whose XY plane defines the cut plane.
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Use a Watch Window to lay the cut plane onto the actual pipe.
The above steps can be repeated for the other pipe segment, if de- sired. However, if applying cuts sequentially, the process contains a few more steps.
Applying Cuts Sequentially
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After cutting the first pipe segment, measure the actual cut and construct a frame on the resulting cut plane. Ensure that this data is aligned appropriately in the SA file.
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Double-click the pipe relationship, and click the Edit button for the appropriate pipe cut.
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Click the Force CUT to Frame button, and select the appropriate frame. This will force the cut to sit on the provided frame.
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Re-solve the optimization. Based on the as-built cut location, you should see the solution get tweaked to account for the changes.
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Based on the results, make the cut on the other pipe segment using the steps in “To Lay Off Cut Planes” above.