How do you convert a CADWORX piping model to CAESAR stress model? Is it worth the time and effort. I have asked several analysts and get mostly complaints that it won't work, and is easier to input from scratch manually. I would like to give this a fresh start, if there is other positive experience.

There's a webinar by Intergraph tomorrow (Tuesday, 07 April) on that subject. I hope it can set you and I both straight, because my personal experience is that it sometimes breaks even on time but mostly screws me up.

My designers currently give me files that are all jumbled, nodes 10-50 are in order, then nodes 60-100 are off somewhere else in the file, then nodes 110-150 pick up where 50 left off, nodes 160-200 are not adjacent to any of the above. If you scroll through the elements the highlight jumps all over the board like a whack-a-mole.

Whatever the designer modeled is what you get. If their pipe schedule wasn't set correctly, your stress model will not be set correctly. I go back and check every data point.

Dummy legs import precisely how the CAESAR II help file says NOT to do it. Cut them all out and try again.

Flanged valves show up as one elongated rigid incorporating the flange, the valve, and the flange again. Break each of them and turn on your flange checks one-by-one.

(edit: typos)

Steve Thanks for the reply. Best I can tell we imported a neutral file from CADWORX into Caesar. The import was pretty good. Back checked every dimension....they were accurate. Had a glitch or 2 but for the most part OK. Will still need to do some followup but so far I would say a good experience.

I would expect a stress engineer to check all nodes regardless.

The main point of complaint is about node numbering ie. no matter what the CADWorx designer does it won't match the particular quirks of how the engineer prefers them to be numbered. The second-most common complaint is components being in/excluded ie. vents/drains, branches, supports.