Use of UDSEWER 2009 1.3.5 Beta

[John Spooner]

I downloaded UDSEWER 2009 several days ago and have been trying to run it on a drain system up here in Estes Park at the Town’s Rodeo Grounds for some new construction.  I should preface my comments by saying I have run older versions of Neo UdSewer (but not beta 1.6.7) and have reviewed the Google Group discussion that occurred last June between Debbie and staff re use of the three options for inputting flow data at a manhole (i.e., Total known flow, local flow contribution or the rational method) and the concerns with small basins where the time of concentration would calc out at less than 5 minutes.  As I understand, the current program will default to a Tc of 5 minutes if the calculated Tc is < 5 min but will still run (I have no problem with this procedure).  I have basin areas that will produce Tc’s of less that 5 min.

 

Here is my problem:

 

1. When I input basin data using the rational approach (with “total known flow” and “local flow contribution” both set to zero), the program will run.  However on the output in both the “Summary of Manhole Hydraulics” and the “Summary of Sewer Flow Data” tables the Design flows are reported as “0”.  However the “Summary of sewer Sizing” and the “Summary of Sewer Flow Data” tables reflect that the program has actually calculated sewer sizes, normal depths, etc. Back calculating from the proposed size, slope and reported normal depth, it would appear that the program was using reasonable flows (using a 5 min Tc), but not reporting these flows in the output.
2. When I then, as a second run, put my externally calculated flows in as “local flow contributions” (leaving the original basin data in the program as it was), the program again runs but again reports the design flows as “0” and again appears to be making reasonable calculations  for the sewer sizing.
3. As a third run, I then put my flows in as “Total known flows” (leaving the basin data as it was and summing the flows as I moved downstream in the system with “local flow contributions = 0), the program now reports the actual total flows in the output and appears to calculate sewer sizing correctly.

 

The question – Am I miss understanding something or is there a “bug” in the “beta” program wherein the flows are not getting printed out correctly?

 

On another side matter – it would be nice if the crown location was shown along with the invert elevations in the profile drawings (ie, show the actual diameters of the calculated sewer pipes on the profiles).  This would help greatly with visualizing pressurized flow etc.  Just a suggestion to improve the program in the future

 

I appreciate the considerable effort that the UDFCD goes to develop the large number of programs and the distribution system you have.

 

John A. Spooner, P.E., Ph.D.

Estes Park

970-586-9388 ext. 15

970-586-8101 (Fax)

joh...@airbits.com

 

__________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 4899 (20100226) __________

The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus.

http://www.eset.com