Steel pipe spools and spool sheets

Cut a steel butt-weld pipe run into spools at a longest length and at the field welds you place, number them, and download a spool sheet per spool (3D view, cut lengths, fittings, welds, bill of materials) as PDF and CSV; ducts get a cut list of straight pieces.

Written for BimCraft 0.7.1. The same help is inside the app: press F1.

What you'll do

Turn a steel pipe run into the pieces a shop welds up and a fitter puts in: spools no longer than a length you choose, split where you place field welds, each with its own sheet.

Only steel butt-weld pipe is cut into spools (pipe sizes ASME B36.10M, elbows at the ASME B16.9 long radius). Copper, PVC and PEX joints are not butt welds, so their runs have no spools.

Cut a run into spools

Pick a steel pipe run. In Properties, tick Cut into spools.
Longest spool: the most centre-line length one spool may have (6 m, about 20 ft, to start with).
Line number: part of every spool's number. A new spooled run gets the next free number of its system.

The spools are numbered along the run from its first point: CHW-12-S01, CHW-12-S02 … (the system, the line number, the spool). A spool grows part by part; the part that would make it too long starts the next one, and a straight length longer than a spool is cut where the spool is full.

Place field welds

Open Build and choose Field weld.
Click on a spooled pipe where the field weld goes. Inside a straight length the pipe is cut there; inside a fitting or a valve, the weld moves to the nearer joint.

Properties lists the run's field welds, each with Remove. Each change is one step of Undo.

Spool sheets

In Properties of a spooled run:

Spool sheets (PDF): one page per spool. On the left, the spool in a 30° isometric view: its straight lengths numbered, shop welds as dots, field welds marked FW, and the plan's north. On the right, the spool's number, size, schedule and length, then its cut lengths, fittings, welds (a shop butt weld at every joint inside the spool, a field weld where it meets the next spool) and its bill of materials with the pipe's weight (ASME B36.10M plain-end weight).
Spool list (CSV): the same, a block per spool.

In the IFC file

Every part of a spooled run carries CadCraft_Spool with its SpoolId, the run, the spool's number in the run, and where it starts and ends along the run. The run keeps its rules (longest spool, field welds, line number) in its own set, so the spools come back the same when the file is opened again.

Ducts: a cut list

Open Build and click Duct cut list: a CSV of the straight duct pieces by system, shape and size, each straight length cut into pieces of the Piece length in the Duct bar (1500 mm, about 5 ft, to start with) and what is left. Lengths only: no seams, gauges or connectors.