Vantage Plant Design Management System (PDMS)

The Vantage Plant Design Management System (PDMS) is a multi-discipline 3D modelling system that allow you to simulate a detailed, full–size model of all the

significant parts of a process plant.

All this information is stored in databases. These range

from reports on data stored in the databases, fully annotated and dimensioned engineering drawings, to full colour–shaded 3D walk–through capabilities which allow you to visualise the complete design model.

PDMS contributes to the quality of the design in the following ways:

Ensures consistent and reliable component data

All piping component sizes and geometry are predefined and stored in a catalogue, which cannot be changed by the designer. This ensures that all items are true to size and are consistent throughout the design, no matter how many users there are on the project.

Ensures correct geometry and connectivity

PDMS can check all of these using data consistency procedures built into the system to check all or individual parts of the design model.

1. By viewing the design interactively during the design process, allowing visual checks on the model from different viewpoints and resolves any potential problems as they arise.

2. By using the powerful clash checking facility within PDMS, which will detect clashes anywhere in the plant, this can be done interactively or retrospectively.

Annotation and dimensions obtained directly from the design database

Extracted information from the PDMS database, such as arrangement drawings,piping isometrics and reports, will always be the latest available as it is stored only in one source. Through the course of a project, information is constantly

changing and drawings need to be reissued. When this happens, drawings, reports etc can be updated and reissued with the minimum of effort PDMS is subdivided into a number of functional modules. 

Each module accesses the databases for a different purpose. The modules and their purpose are listed below.

DESIGN                             3D Model Design

DRAFT                                2D Drawing Production

ISODRAFT                        Isometric Drawing Production

ADMIN                               Project/User Control

PARAGON                        Catalogue Construction

SPECON                            Specification Construction

PROPCON                       Properties Construction

LEXICON                        User Defined Attributes

DESIGN

The main features:

• Create new design elements.

• Modify existing design elements.

• Interrogate and View the design model interactively by graphical manipulation.

• Create Reports to detail MTO, project pricing, project timing, customisation of user defined requirements etc.

• Run a Clash detection application to check interference between design elements.

DRAFT

DRAFT is used to create and manipulate drawings, annotation and dimensioning.The annotation can be in the form of labels attached to design elements, or 2D annotation such as drawing notes, or drawing frames, tables, lines etc.

ISODRAFT

ISODRAFT produces dimensioned symbolic piping isometrics for construction and erection purposes. This module produces isometric drawings in various formats, as

required. Its facilities include:

• Full material lists.

• Automatic spool identification.

• Automatic splitting of complex drawings.

• User-defined drawing sheets.

• Many other options that can be selected at the production stage.

ADMIN

PDMS has Teams, the members of which are called Users. These Teams can consist of any number of Users and can be organised by discipline or physical work areas.

The main features are:

Access Control (Teams and Users)

Databases (DB’s)

Multiple Databases (MDBs)

Database management functionality

PARAGON

PARAGON is used to input and modify the component catalogue stored in the project database.

PROPCON

This module is used to construct a Properties database. The database contains data for use with design databases as well as stress analysis packages and includes:

• Material properties.

• Component data.

LEXICON

This module enables User Definable Attributes (UDA’s) to be assigned to PDMS elements so that additional information may be stored in the databases and extracted into drawings and reports.

The heart of PDMS consists of a set of hierarchical databases that store the model data. The database system is called Dabacon and is exclusive to AVEVA.

How PDMS Data is Stored

WORLD

When the database is first built, it is empty except for a single element named the WORLD. Each database has its own WORLD element as the first element in the hierarchy.

SITE

SITE may be considered as a significant collection of plant

ZONE

a ZONE is not necessarily used to define a physical area, it is more likely to store similar types of item for easy

reference, such as a piping system in one ZONE,

EQUIPMENT (EQUI)

Equipment items are built up in PDMS using elements known as primitives

SUB-EQUIPMENT (SUBE)

A SUBE is an optional element to further sub-divide an EQUI. The SUBE can own primitive elements.

PRIMITIVES

Primitives are the basic building blocks of PDMS. They are used by other disciplines to create catalogue components

PIPING COMPONENTS

A BRAN can own a wide variety of components such as gaskets (GASK), flanges

(FLAN), tees (TEE), valves (VALV), elbows (ELBO), etc. These form the shape and geometry of the BRAN and ultimately the pipeline itself.

PIPE

Pipes may be considered like lines on a flowsheet. They may run between several

end connection points and are usually grouped by a common specification and

process.

BRANCH (BRAN)

Branch elements are sections of a pipe, which have known start and finish points. In

PDMS the start and finish points are called the Head and Tail

Attributes in PDMS

Every element in a PDMS database has a fixed set of properties known as its

attributes. Some attributes are common throughout the range of elements while

others differ according to the type of element involved. For example, a cylinder

(CYLI) has Height and Diameter attributes whilst the size of a box (BOX) is

determined by Xlength, Ylength and Zlength attributes, as illustrated below.

Piping

The difference between pipes and branches is that a branch is only considered to have two ends, while a pipe may have

any number of ends, depending on the number of branches it owns.

Specification before you can use them. In the Training Project there are three such specifications:

A1A-TRA = ANSI CLASS 150 CARBON STEEL

A3B-TRA = ANSI CLASS 300 CARBON STEEL

F1C-TRA = ANSI CLASS 150 STAINLESS STEEL