Sections, Materials & Personal Libraries
The Library tab defines the pipe cross-sections and materials your elements reference. Every element carries a section and a material; change them per element in Assign, the Inspector, or the Grid Editor, or in bulk with Bulk Assign.
Pipe sections
A section holds:
| Field | Units | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Name | — | e.g. DN80 SCH 80 |
| Outer Diameter | mm / in | |
| Wall Thickness | mm / in | |
| OD₂ / WT₂ | mm / in | Optional — makes the section a reducer (tapers along the element) |
| Added UDL | N/m | Extra distributed load (e.g. snow, cable tray share) |
| Mill Tolerance | % | Default 12.5 % — reduces the wall used in the hoop pressure check |
| Corrosion Allowance | mm | Subtracted from the wall in code checks |
| Coating Thickness / Density | mm, kg/m³ | Adds coating weight and mass |
Catalogue picker — the dropdown at the top loads standard dimensions (DN/NPS × schedule) from the cloud catalogue; picking one pre-fills OD/wall, and you save it into the project under your own name.
Materials
| Field | Units | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| E (Elastic Modulus) | MPa | |
| Yield Strength | MPa | Reported for reference |
| Allowable Stress Sh | MPa | Hot allowable — sustained check SL ≤ Sh |
| Allowable Stress (Cold) Sc | MPa | Cold allowable — expansion allowable SA = f(1.25·Sc + 0.25·Sh) |
| α (Thermal Expansion) | 10⁻⁶/°C | Drives thermal growth |
A materials catalogue picker works the same way as sections. Enter allowables at your design temperature from the code tables — the app does not interpolate B31.3 Table A-1 for you.
Personal libraries (cloud)
Sections, materials, specifications and soil profiles each have a Library Bar (visible in their tabs when signed in):
- Save to My Library stores the currently edited entry against your account.
- The library dropdown lists your saved entries; Load copies one into the current project.
- Entries are private to your account and available in every project.
This is the fastest way to carry a company pipe spec set from project to project.
Where sections and materials come from automatically
- PCF import creates sections from each component's DN + schedule (walls from the built-in ASME B36.10M table), and materials from the BOM material family — see PCF Import.
- New Project seeds one default section (4-inch SCH 40) and material so routing works immediately.