The insulation planning module in IMPACT Project Manager/IMPACT Resource Manager is a tool where you can decide how to split up your element insulation into pieces that can be prefabricated and marked up before the casting of the element.

Figure 1: Example of marked up Polystyrene insulation for an element

Loading of the Module

The module has it's own license and it can be loaded into both Project Manager and Resource Manager.

Figure 2: Loading of module in IMPACT Project Manager and IMPACT Resource Manager

Reference from design

As a reference from design you can either use a specially made *.insulation file that has been prepared by the design tool or you can use a PDF file as the reference.

Using a Specially made *.insulation file as reference from design

In IMPACT for CAD we have made functions that export the *.insulation file from the insulation solid and in the future we will also implement the same functionality from IMPACT for Revit.

Figure 3: The setup developed in IMPACT for CAD to send a 3D and 2D representation of the insulation solid to the IMPACT Insulation Planning module.

There is settings in IMPACT Standard Admin to turn of Automatic creation of the insulation planning reference file.

Figure 4: Description of the insulation reference file from design.

The file is dwg format file with special namings of the layers.

Figure 5: The insulation reference file from design open as a dwg file.

Loading of the *.insulation file in the insulation planning module

Before you can start with loading the .insulation file, you need to configure a setting in Standard Admin called AUTOUPDATEINSULATIONDWG. 

Figure 6. Start the setting to generate .insulation files. 

When you generate a shop drawing or doing an MTO, the .insulation file will be created. 

The file is loaded by marking an element in the model or in the Element id grid in Project Manager or by Marking the element in the mould or in the Planning grid in Resource Manager.

Figure 6: Loading the *.Insulation reference file from design in the Insulation Planning Module.

There is only one Reference file per element mark but the insulation planning module works with individual element ids. The naming of the *.insulation file is the same as the drawing name and the placement is in the same folder as the drawing file (dwg).

Figure 7: The *.Insulation file when loaded into the Insulation Planning Module

The File consist of both 2D and 3D entities of the insulation solid from the CAD system. In addition it also includes the Panel thickenings and change for the endcap. The endcap insulation is also its own solid to make it easier to draw the fire protection insulation.

Using a PDF file as design reference

If there is no *.insulation file with the same name as the drawing in the correct folder an open drawing dialog will pop up instead of loading the file automatically. It's recommended to use the same name of the PDF as the drawing and to place it in the same folder as the drawing as that is the place where the program will look for the file.

Loading of the *.pdf file in the insulation planning module

The file is loaded by marking an element in the model or in the Element id grid in Project Manager or by Marking the element in the mould or in the Planning grid in Resource Manager.

Figure 8: Loading the *.pdf reference file from design in the Insulation Planning Module.

It's setup to load the file from the default folder and also to load *.insulation file. To load a pdf file you need to change the filter.

Figure 9: Changing filter while loading the pdf file.

When the file has been loaded the scale and location of the file can be wrong.

Figure 10: The pdf file is loaded and no we need to make sure that the scale, location and the cropping of the file is as we want it to be.

I start with scaling the pdf reference to match the size of my element.

Figure 11: The pdf file zoomed in.

As I have dimensions on the pdf I will use one of them to scale the pdf to match the element. I select the Scale from the dropdown menu on the PDF button.

Figure 12: Scaling the pdf by clicking the node points on the dimension.

Next step is to move the location of the element to the origin point of the insulation piece.

Figure 13: Moving the pdf to the correct origin point.

To avoid having to much data outside of scope I crop the pdf to get the needed information only.

Figure 14: Crop the pdf.

When ready the actual information needed from the pdf is stored in an *.xml file.

Figure 15: The pdf converted to an xml with the correct scale, origin and crop.

If the pdf later on will change there will be a message on Load drawing

Figure 16: Possibility to reload the pdf if the source file has changed.

Drawing insulation Pieces

Example 1: Sandwich wall with a window and a door

The pieces are drawn using object snap or grid snap or a combination of both. In my example I will draw insulation for a Sandwich wall with one window and one door. Switching to only showing 3D (not possible when using pdf reference) we can see the different thickness of insulation. Around the windows and the door the material is Mineral Wool and for the rest is Polystyrene. 

Figure 17: Design reference 3D of the insulation pieces.

I start drawing the edge insulation around the windows and the doors 30 mm Mineral Wool. Before doing that I switch to showing only the 2D part of the design reference.

Figure 18: Design reference 2D of the insulation pieces.

I select the correct material and the thickness I like and then I start the Rectangle Array command.

I click the first corner of the piece.

and then the second corner.

If the orientation of the piece is incorrect I use Rotated to turn it around.

As the maximum height of the piece is 2000 and the opening is just like some millimeters more I draw the vertical piece 2000.

As it's a full piece according to my specification and H ("Hel" which means Whole in Swedish) is added. I will then use the copy command to copy the piece to the other side of the door.

Then I start by selecting the command copy and then select the piece zoom in with the mouse wheel and select the lower left corner of the piece as illustrated in the picture above. Then I click the destination corner and ending up with one more piece on the other side as in the pictures below.

I Continue to draw in the same way for all the edges.

Next stage is that I will draw the insulation around the panel thickening which is 125 thick.

As you can see below they don't get the same size so I use the edit command to compare them.

The I decide to make them 150x800x125 so I use the Select Box command and select both of them.

In the top part there is a thinner part that is only 150 mm the rest of the insulation is 200 mm.

We need to draw some helplines for that parts are not colliding with the 2D reference.

Now we shall draw the pieces that are 200 mm in thickness.

Example 2: Sandwich wall with leaning top edge

In the example the top of the element has a sloping edge and we shall use 200 mm of Polystyrene for the whole piece.

I start the Rectangle Array command.

I click the lower left corner to get the object snap to lock on the crossing.

I want to have the pieces laying so I click the Rotated button.

The I click the top right edge.

The pieces are laid out.

I click the Split X-Z button.

I make a window and select all Pieces that can come in play for the splitting.

I Right click to proceed to next question.

I click the leaning line of the 2D design reference.

I use the delete command to remove the pieces that is not needed.

I end up with something above. If I combine laying and standing Pieces I can get something like this instead.

Example 3: Insulated wall using a PDF

110 mm Polystyrene in the common part and 50 mm Mineral wool in the centric tor rectangular areas.

I start to draw the Mineral wool.

Clicking lower left edge selecting rotated and select top right edge.

The area is not filled up because the top pieces is smaller than my smallest width in the setting so lets change that.

I change the min size from 100 to 50 mm.

I draw the pieces in the other area as well.

Then I continue with the Polystyrene pieces.

Starting with some standing pieces. 
As there are no snapping points for the central standing piece I make a helpline in the lower horizontal part of the piece from left to right edge.

Then I draw a small piece.

Then extend it to the lower line.

Then I draw the last piece to the right.

And fill up with standing pieces.

Printing report

From the Print button you can access the print function if the report is setup in IMPACT Report tool. Click here to download the report. 

The report have a top part with overview pictures.

If multiple layers are used several pictures will be given.

In the part below each piece have their own row with the size and an image describing the shape for cutting.

Settings

The Grid Step and the Border Size are shown in the picture below.

Material

In IMPACT Standard Admin you can specify which materials you have.

The Prefix used you setup in the Material itself.

From the right click menu you can access the Parts... where you setup up your standard insulation sizes.

This will be the sizes used in the module.

Short commands