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6 most popular Piping Design tools used in the industry

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Introduction:

3d piping design software is a major portion of engineering work in most of the industries e.g. Power, Oil and Gas, Petrochemicals, Refineries, pulp and paper, chemicals, and process industry. There are close to 50 plant or piping design software used by various engineering companies throughout the world. There are pros and cons with every software including the price point. The current trend in the EPC and owner sector is towards integrated systems of management, design, manufacturing, and construction. In today's plant engineering practices, organizations try to develop a detailed 3D model of the plant for optimized design, construction, material management, planning, and safety. In this article, we will cover the 6 most popular software for piping design.

3d Piping Design Software Tools:

  1. Smart® 3D – developed by Hexagon PPM (Previously Intergraph)
  2. PDMS – Plant Design & Management software developed by AVEVA PLANT
  3. PDS – Plant Design software developed by Hexagon
  4. CADWorx – developed by Hexagon
  5. AutoPLANT – developed by BENTLEY
  6. AutoCAD Plant 3D – by Autodesk

Now let’s take a brief look on all this software one by one,

1. Smart® 3D – developed by Hexagon PPM (Previously Intergraph):

Smart® 3D is a next-generation, data-centric, rule-driven solution specifically designed to deliver mission-critical requirements. Smart 3D provides all capabilities needed to design plant, marine, and materials handling facilities and then maintain their 3D “as-built” representations, which offers a competitive edge to EPCs and owner-operators.
Smart plant 3D can integrate easily with other Hexagon products such as Smart Plant Instrumentation and Smart Plant P&ID. Smart® 3D also can integrate with 3rd party AVEVA Plant™ products & applications making the software very worthy. (Source: Points taken from Hexagon PPM site_SP3D section)

Benefits and features of Smart® 3D: (Source: Points taken from Hexagon PPM site_SP3D product features sheet)

  • Real-time Concurrent Design
  • Automated Deliverables
  • Intelligent Rules and Relationships
  • Interoperability
  • Task-based Modeling
  • Undo function available
  • Offers 3D visualization tools for creating models

2. PDMS – Plant design & Management software developed by AVEVA PLANT:

PDMS (Plant Design Management System) as it is known in the 3D CAD industry, is a customizable, multi-user and multi-discipline, engineer controlled design software package for engineering, design, and construction projects in offshore and onshore'.
PDMS software is a very popular software for piping design developed by AVEVA. It's customizable and multi user characteristics make PDMS as one of the most demanding piping software in the EPC and Owner sector.
AVEVA PDMS is gradually being phased out and will be removed from the market by 2024. It will be migrated to the AVEVA E3D Design package subsequently. (Source: Points taken from Aveva.com site PDMS section_and wikipedia)

Benefits and features of AVEVA PDMS: (Source: Some Points taken from Aveva.com , PDMS feature section )

  • Reuses designs from incorporated components
  • Offers visual highlighting through Status Management
  • Smooth integration with 2D AutoCAD
  • Easier modification of existing models
  • Handles higher job sizes efficiently
  • User-defined commands can be created
  • Online clash detection available

3. PDS- Plant design software developed by Hexagon:

PDS or Plant Design System is a comprehensive, intelligent computer-aided design/engineering application. PDS is one of the most popular 3D model piping program used by various Engineering companies throughout the world since 1980.
PDS is developed by Intergraph (Currently Hexagon). PDS runs on Microsoft windows and are much compatible with most of the 3rd party modules and hexagon software. The software is comprehensively used in sectors like refinery, offshore facilities, power plants, petrochemical plants, chemical, etc. (Source: Points taken from Hexagon PPM site_PDS section)

Benefits and feature of PDS:

  • Dynamic walkthrough for operations and maintenance personnel
  • Interference checking by developing clash-free systems
  • Accurate material take-offs
  • Specification-driven design and phased reviews
  • Integration with complementary applications

4. CADWorx developed by Hexagon:

CADWorx Plant Professional runs on AutoCAD or BricsCAD platform and includes BricsCAD® Pro, providing a complete package with powerful and adaptive tools that enable quick and easy creation of fully intelligent 3D plant models.
CADWorx enables efficient plant design for various packages including oil and gas, green field and brownfield refinery, petrochemicals, fertilizers and many more. (Source: Points taken from Hexagon PPM site_CADWorx section)

Additional modules that are included with CADWorx Plant Professional:

  • CADWorx Design Review
  • CADWorx Equipment
  • CADWorx HVAC
  • CADWorx Structure
  • CADWorx P&ID Basic, BricsCAD Pro

Benefits and features of CADWorx® (Source: Points taken from Hexagon PPM site_CADWorx features)

  • Accurate piping design with over 60,000 parametrically driven components
  • Automatic isometrics from layouts, databases, or Isogen®
  • Clash/collision detection in current or referenced models
  • Real-time design status and BOM creation in various formats
  • Intelligent 3D Piping Design
  • Equipment Library Administration
  • As-builts from Point Clouds

5. Auto PLANT developed by BENTLEY:

Bentley Auto PLANT Design is an object-based 3D piping design and modeling application that runs on AutoCAD. The system is built on powerful object-oriented technology, yet it is easy to use and customize.
Piping models can be easily created and developed in the 3D environment of Auto PLANT. It provides state of the art 3D modelling previously unavailable in any AutoCAD-based package.
Auto PLANT provides interactive routing for various industries in the oil and gas, petrochemicals, refinery, water treatment, power generation, chemical sectors. (Source: Points taken from Bentley.com site_AutoPlant modeller section)

Additional modules that are included in Auto PLANT:

  • AutoPLANT Piping
  • AutoPLANT Equipment
  • AutoPLANT I&W
  • AutoPLANT P&ID
  • AutoPLANT AutoIsogen

Benefits and features of Auto PLANT: (Source: Points taken from Bentley.com site_AutoPlant modeller feature sheet)

  • Automatic Piping Isometrics with OpenPlant Isometrics Manager
  • Integration with Bentley plant design for data mobility
  • Access over 100 component catalogs
  • Save IT time with scripting for AutoPLANT install
  • Create user-defined equipment for vendor accuracy
  • High information mobility

6. AutoCAD Plant-3D by Autodesk:

AutoCAD Plant 3D adds 3D models, including piping, equipment, support structures, generation of isometric, and orthographic drawings. Additionally, integrated AutoCAD P&ID functionality and quick generation of isometric increase productivity, accuracy, and coordination.

Benefits and features of AutoCAD Plant 3D: (Source: Points taken from autodesk.com site_AutoCAD plant 3D section)

  • Solid mesh modeling characteristics
  • Modern 3D navigation tools (wheels, orbit, view cube)
  • Develop different section planes, including cross-sections
  • Render 3D models on the web without affecting system memory

Conclusion:

3D modelling piping software is an inevitable part for an EPC design engineering team. Use of these packages significantly enhances the performance of the detail engineering, reduces errors, reduces work in site and in overall makes the workflow very much efficient.
At MECS Engineering, we take care every aspect of the project using the most sophisticated software to meet the project and Code requirements. When we assemble a team for a project, we do it strategically to optimize the resources. This also gives us the opportunity to save on engineering costs and improve on project schedule. For any assistance or further information please contact us.