TRIFLEX®Windows 2.5.3 Enhancements & Modifications

TRIFLEX® Windows 2.5.3
August 18, 2004

Enhancements

1. Minimum Temperature Limit Relaxation – Under certain circumstances, provided specified testing is done and certification is on hand, various piping codes allow materials to be used below their nominal minimum temperature limit given in the code documentation. A field is provided on the Model Defaults dialog that permits TRIFLEX®Windows to use such materials at reduced temperatures to the extent that the expansion coefficient and modulus of elasticity data are available.

2. Fatigue Analysis – Fatigue Analysis for ASME B31.x piping codes, based on ASME Section VIII, Division 2, Appendix 5 guidelines has been updated to the 2001 release of that code. This affects the suggested fatigue curve for carbon, low-alloy, Series 4xx, high-alloy, and high tensile steels, Figure 5-110. Here, the maximum number of allowable cycles has been increased from 106 to 1011.

Modifications

1. B31.3 Material Database – Several materials in the internal B31.3 Carbon Steel database were entered with extraneous spaces in minimum temperature field. This error resulted in the minimum temperatures being calculated incorrectly if these materials were used, and TRIFLEX®Windows not being able to execute because material temperature limits were not being satisfied. The problem with these materials is now corrected.

2. B31.5 Code Compliance Dialog – Bringing up the B31.5 code compliance dialog in version 2.5.1 or 2.5.2 of TRIFLEX®Windows would result in a program malfunction. This issue has been rectified.

3. Flexible Joint Orientation Angle – The orientation angle, specifying the Counter-Clockwise rotation of the B axis of flexible joints from the MNU (most nearly up) vector, could be inadvertently changed by the program if the direction vector, denoted by the Delta X, Delta Y, and Delta Z values, were changed to align with the C axis of the joint.

4. Flexible Joint User Specified Shape – The dialog requesting sizing information for user specified round bar, rectangular bar, square bar, and structural tubing no longer intrusively appears when trying to edit a previously entered member.

5. A335 Grade P11 Steel – The internal database entry for A 335, Grade P11 steel for use with the B31.1 piping code had erroneous allowable stresses listed at temperatures higher than 750 degrees Fahrenheit. The entry has been corrected.

6. Diameter Change with Soil Interaction – When changing pipe diameter or insulation thickness on the Pipe Properties tab of a component dialog, the soil vertical loading, load coefficient, and stiffness values are now updated automatically.

7. Structural Steel Extreme Fiber Distance and Moment of Inertia Data – The data for extreme fiber distance and moment of inertia has been corrected for the structural steel shapes being read from the database. Previously the data was being brought in with the B and C axes interchanged.

8. User Defined Structural Members – The dialog for defining structural steel members has been modified such that the entry fields correspond to and are labeled the same as the equivalent fields in the Flexible Joint Component Entry dialog.

9. Delta Dimension Fields – The entry dialog for all components no longer accept blanks in the delta dimension fields. A field that is left blank will be converted to zero. Further exiting the dialog with a typographical error in the delta dimension field is not allowed. An error message is given when the user tries to exit under these circumstances.

10. Structural Steel, ‘M-Type’ Beams – The internal database has been updated to include data for all M-type structural steel beams given in the AISC Steel Construction Manual, rather than only a limited selection.

11. Invalidation of the Output Browse Facility – In previous releases of TRIFLEX®Windows, once a run was completed, opening of the component entry dialogs and switching between the various tabs to review the input data, would occasionally invalidate the output such that to again retrieve the output spreadsheet or code compliance report would require a new run. To a large extent this behavior has been corrected. If the input data is not changed, the output should remain viewable. If, on the other hand, input data is changed, such that the input and output no longer agree, a new run is required to revalidate the output screens.

12. Fabricated and Extruded Tees – From version 2.4.0 to version 2.5.2, the branch component dialog interchanged fabricated and extruded tees, resulting in an incorrect Stress Intensification Factor (SIF) being passed to the calculator. Data files produced and saved by versions prior to 2.4.0 while calculating correctly, would be shown erroneously in the branch dialog. This problem is now corrected.

13. Miscellaneous Dialog Corrections – Several dialog corrections have been made in this release pertaining to spelling errors, grammatical inconsistencies, control alignment, and tab stop sequencing. These modifications are basically cosmetic and do not affect program performance.

14. Reducer Pipe Schedule – The inlet and outlet pipe schedule fields on a reducer could give erroneous dialog data following a selection on certain pipe sizes, depending on how the pipe size data was entered into the database. If, for instance with 12 inch pipe a schedule 80 pipe was selected, while all properties and calculations would be done for schedule 80 pipe size, schedule 80S would appear in the schedule drop list. This anomaly has been fixed.

15. Response Spectrum Clustering Factor – The Response Spectrum Clustering factor has been limited to an input value greater than zero and less than one hundred percent. Should values out of this range, including a blank, be entered into the data field on the response spectrum dialog, the value will be reset to five percent.