Fire-protection designers use a variety of methods and software programs to lay out fire-protection systems. In the Autodesk® Revit® MEP 2015 software, fire protection is probably one of the least mentioned features. However, there are considerable benefits to performing this process in Revit MEP, including coordination and clash detection with other services and building elements.
In this chapter, you will learn to do the following:
Proper planning in placing fire-protection equipment is essential when trying to create a productive layout with Revit MEP 2015. You should plan to have most of your equipment roughly located during the schematic design phase of the project, which helps with productivity and coordination with other disciplines. You need to use proper design methods to verify whether a fire pump is required on a project.
Although pump manufacturers are starting to provide Revit content, they are still few and far between. If you look under Imperial Library Ø Fire Protection, you will find several components that can be used out of the box for fire protection. Others can be found as mechanical or piping components. For example, the backflow preventer is located under Imperial Library Pipe Valves Backflow Preventers.
You should start your model by understanding where your water supply starts. Normally, a civil engineer provides location details. There is no special need for a model element to represent this point of connection (POC). You can simply begin drawing pipe at the appropriate location. However, you may want something to help identify this POC. You can display this information in your design model by either creating a water meter family or modifying an end cap family. To modify an existing family to indicate the water inlet point, do the following:
Ch16_Dataset.rvt
file found at www.sybex.com/go/masteringrevitmep2015.Fire Protection Point of Connection.rfa
in your office's custom family folder.When creating these new parameters, be sure to use the piping discipline and appropriate units. Also, because you will want to either tag or schedule the data contained in these parameters, you need to use shared parameters. (See Chapter 6, “Parameters,” for more information.) You can leave the end cap the way it is modeled, or you can use model lines with an ellipse to create a break line symbol that shows up in single-line piping, as shown in Figure 16.1. After drawing the model lines, select them and change the Family Element Visibility Settings options to not show the lines in fine detail (usually reserved for double-line piping). To do this, choose Properties Graphics Visibility/Graphic Overrides, and then in the dialog box that opens, click the Edit button. In the next dialog box, deselect the Fine check box.
You should try to preassemble as many of the fire-protection components as possible to help reduce production time. Figure 16.2 shows a fire pump preassembled so that you would have to change out only certain components—for example, changing the pump for a smaller or larger pump, depending on what is called for by the calculated fire flow demand.
To create a preassembled fire pump, do the following:
pump assembly model.rvt
.You can use an inline pump to represent a jockey pump because it matches closely in size. The inline pump is located under Imperial Library Mechanical Components Water Side Components Pumps.
It may be hard to find Revit families to represent the control panels. For these, you can create a family by using an electrical equipment family type. Another option for showing the control panel is to model it temporarily as an in-place component to help with space planning (see Figure 16.3).
This component would be used as a placeholder to ensure that the control panel is accounted for. Usually, the electrical engineer documents the detailed panel information apart from your fire-protection model.
Using the link method gives far more flexibility when positioning this object—as long as it is subsequently bound to allow access to the connections. Be aware that any hosted families used in this process lose their associated host.
The copy-and-paste method gives you a warning for any hosted elements because of the lost association. Even though the individual elements' hosting association is lost, they retain their location properties correctly.
The two preceding example methods—either creating a group of a standard layout or copying and pasting—provide the most effective way to apply common layouts across projects. Similar results may be achieved with a single complex family, but perhaps it won't provide the necessary flexibility to accommodate the project specifics.
Fire risers for most small projects are assembled from the same basic parts. The ideal way to handle assemblies like this is to create them as a mechanical equipment family. This lets you place a single family quickly during schematic design. The placement of the fire riser is crucial for understanding where the fire line needs to be routed and for space planning within the building. This family can be constructed from nested valve and fitting families along with extruded solids to indicate pipes (see Figure 16.4).
To review what components make up this family, do the following:
6 Inch Fire Riser.rfa
located at www.sybex.com/go/masteringrevitmep2015.Pipe Elbow.rfa
, Pipe Tee.rfa
, Alarm Pressure Switch.rfa
, Ball Valve - 2.5-6 Inch.rfa
, Check Valve - 2-12 Inch - Flanged .rfa
, Double Check Valve - 2.5-10 Inch.rfa
, Multi-Purpose Valve - Angle - 1.5-2.5 Inch - Threaded.rfa
, and Plug Valve - 0.5-2 Inch.rfa
. You can insert these from the Pipe Fitting and Pipe Accessories
directory located in the imperial library.By assembling the riser as a single family, you can coordinate the location in which it is being installed and then start planning how to route your piping. This family does not need to be parametrically flexible. The assembly will still speed your production for future projects even if it needs to be edited manually for different sizes and configurations.
Now that you know about fire pump assemblies and how to create a standard fire riser, you can start planning for the type of fire-protection sprinkler heads you need to use for your model. Revit MEP 2015 has several types of sprinkler heads from which you can choose. The different family types of sprinkler heads are hosted and nonhosted.
Hosted sprinkler heads are normally face-based families. When using these types of families, you need to locate them on a surface. The locations depend on the installation and the type of sprinklers, which could be wall, ceiling, slab, or soffit mounted. The surfaces can be part of the linked architectural model or reference planes defined within your fire-protection model.
Nonhosted sprinkler families must have the Offset height parameter set to locate the heads at the proper elevation (see Figure 16.5).
Upright sprinkler heads are normally nonhosted because they are located in spaces that do not have ceilings, such as storage rooms or mechanical closets. If you do not set the offset height, the heads will come in at a default of 0″ (0 mm), which could locate the heads on or below the floor level. This is easily fixed by clicking the button to place a sprinkler and changing the Offset setting in the Properties palette before placing the family.
You can create several types of fire-protection systems. They are as follows:
You can also refer to piping systems in Chapter 11, “Mechanical Piping,” for more information. When creating a fire-protection system, one thing to remember is that the system does not calculate and autosize as it does for domestic water systems. The main reason is that fire-protection systems have no true way of selecting and calculating which heads are in the highest demand.
If the system were to try to calculate by GPM, it would account for every sprinkler head on the system, which would grossly oversize the system. Also, the fire-protection system at this time has no effective way of calculating the water pressure as it goes higher in elevation.
When creating a fire-protection wet system or one of the systems previously mentioned, you would first select all the components that are going to be associated with that system. Selecting these items may be easier if you use the Temporary Hide/Isolate command to hide the model categories that you do not want to include. Select Hide Category to do this (see Figure 16.6). You can also use the feature Selection Sets to remember the selected items for future usage. After you have selected all components that you want, simply click the Save button from the Selection panel located under the Modify | Multi-Select tab. When nothing is selected, you can find the tool under the Manage tab.
In case a system has already been started, you can add to it by selecting a component on the system. Click Piping Systems Edit System Add To System, and then window all the items you want to add to the system. If this is done correctly, you should see all the items in the System Browser under the system you created (see Figure 16.7). As of Revit MEP 2014, the sprinkler heads can also be added to the system automatically as they are connected by the pipework. This can be an easier way to create the systems because you don't have to organize the systems manually before you start drawing the pipework. However, it also means you need to act with extra caution because systems can disappear without warning if connected in the wrong way.
Once your fire-protection system is created, you need to make sure the piping will filter correctly. You can use filters to separate the fire-protection pipes from all other pipes in your Revit model. This assists you with turning off all other pipes from the fire-protection views and sheets.
For controlling the linetypes and line colors of your systems, you should use piping systems, located in the Project Browser under Families. From the piping systems properties, you can assign the color, linetype, and system abbreviation for your systems. From the same dialog box, you can also disable the flow calculations for your fire systems if they are not required. This increases your Revit project performance and does not waste system resources on computing systems' flow data that may not be important to you.
The main benefit of using this relatively new method of controlling your colors and linetypes vs. using the old method of filters is that the settings are global and apply to all views. You still need to manage filters in order to control what systems are visible in what views. But at least when you cut a section or go to a 3D view, all of your components that are already connected to a system will be displaying the appropriate colors and linetypes, without the need to apply a view template.
To create a fire-protection filter, do the following:
Now you will see the Visibility/Graphic Overrides dialog box open to the Filters tab. Click Add, and you should see the newly created filter (see Figure 16.9).
So what do you do if you require special fittings? It's quite common to see mechanical joints required on fire-protection systems. Because they do not exist in the out-of-box content of Revit MEP 2015, you are stuck with three choices:
Now you are nearly ready to route piping. There are still a number of pipe settings that will help you. Pipe systems and pipe types settings are important to adjust. Pipe material, the pipe sizing table, and the fluids table can also be altered as needed. These were explained previously in Chapter 11.
The various options for automatic and manual pipe routing were also discussed in Chapter 11. Unlike for mechanical piping or domestic and sanitary piping, automatic pipe routing is more likely to be a productive option. Fire-protection piping is often much more symmetrical than piping in other disciplines, making autorouting easier to manage. Refer to Chapter 11 to review both auto and manual pipe routing.