| Product(s): | WaterGEMS, WaterCAD | ||
| Version(s): | CONNECT Edition, V8i | ||
| Area: | Output and Reporting |
Problem
How can I report the pressure or other results at Customer Meter elements?
Solution
Starting with the CONNECT Edition release of WaterGEMS and WaterCAD, results fields for hydraulic grade and pressure have been included for the customer meter element. To help prevent reduced performance (longer load times), these results are not computed by default. If you want to include these results in the customer meter, open the Calculation Options and change the property "Calculate Customer Results?" to True. When you compute the model, you will see results for hydraulic grade at the current time step, as well as maximum and minimum results across the model run.
You should see .crs files that contains numbers such as ".wtg_1_1515.crs". These files store the saved calculated customer meter results. It is safe to delete them, but the calculated results at customer meters will no longer be available until the model is re-computed.
For large models with a lot of customer elements, this may result in more sluggish performance or a delay in calculation.
If you are using WaterGEMS/WaterCAD V8i SELECTseries6 or earlier, these are results are not included, as the customer meter element is mainly intended for input, not for results. This was done in order to keep the feature "light weight" considering that some models may have hundreds of thousands of customer elements (or more). Adding the ability to save results could potentially have a large impact on model performance, especially for such users with large numbers of customer meters in their models.
Automated Fireflow
Please note that the pressure at customer meters is not currently part of the zone or system pressure constraint check, nor is it included in the auxiliary results (for use with the fireflow results browser). In a typical model with a large number of customer meters, this would cause too much data to be stored and increase the complexity of the fireflow calculations. Instead, you would need to rely on the pressure at nearby junctions which would typically be a similar elevation.
Crash occurs when using custom Windows profile location
If your Windows user profile has been remapped (for example to another drive letter or folder), you may encounter a crash when trying to use the calculation option to store customer results:
Inner exception:
08/28/2023 14:14:07.76 System.IO.DirectoryNotFoundException: Could not find a part of the path 'C:\Users\Public\WriteCustomerResults_performance.txt'.
This can occur in version 10.04.00.108 and below because the above folder/file location is hard coded. If this folder does not exist because your IT/Administrator has mapped your Windows user profile to a different location (for example in a D:\ drive) the program may crash. This issue is resolved starting with the 2023 version of the software. If you are working on 10.04.xx.xx, a possible solution is to request that your IT/administrator create that folder and grant write permission.
Potential Workarounds in older versions of WaterGEMS and WaterCAD (V8i)
Spot Elevations
One thing to note is that the customer element does not have an elevation field in older versions so you would not be able to get an exact pressure, though the elevation (and pressure) of the associated element is likely an accurate approximation. If the source file for the customer meters does have elevation data, you could import them as spot elevations, mapping the elevation field. You can then read the pressure from the spot elevation.
Lookup in Excel
1) Set up an Excel spreadsheet with worksheets for junction and customer meter. Set up columns for label and pressure for the junction worksheet and label and Associated element for customer meter.
2) Set up a Modelbuilder connection to the spreadsheet, mapping the appropriate elements and fields, then perform a Sync-Out
3) In Excel, use vlookup in the customer meter worksheet to read the pressure of the junction worksheet, matching based on associated element. See attached example below.
4) Optional: create a User Data Extension for customer meters in the model and import the pressure using Modelbuilder
Customer Meter Pressure Lookup
Junctions and pressure contours
1) Generate a pressure contour, right click it in the contour manager and choose to export to DXF
2) Create a child active topology alternative and assign it to a new child scenario
3) In the new child scenario, use Modelbuilder to import the customer meter source file file as junction, choosing to save a selection set
4) Use Terrain Extractor (Trex) with the DXF from step 1 and selection set from step 3, importing essentially an estimate of the pressure at the customer meter location into the junction's elevation field. The elevation field would then be interpreted as the pressure, considering the units used.
5) Hide the customer meter layer by unchecking the box next to it in Element Symbology, in order to see the junctions in the child scenario that contain the pressures.
Waterobjects.NET
An experienced programmer and member of the Bentley Developer Network could conceivably use the WaterObjects.NET API to program a tool that would report the pressure for customer meters. See more here:
See Also
Customer Meter Elements and the External Customer Meter Data Manager