Lesson 1 : Getting started

In this first lesson we will explain some of the principles of using the FHC software

 

•Open a FHC project file

•Find the FHC example projects

•Use the various view commands

•Calculate the system

•Display various properties 

 

Open a FHC project file

 

Your need to start the FHC program and then go to the menu File -> Open and navigate to the examples folder.  When FHC is installed it creates a folder in the Windows documents called "My FHC" you should be able to easily navigate this using the standard Windows commands the exact method will vary depending which version of Windows you are using.  In Windows 10 it should look something like this 'This PC > documents > My FHC' once you have found this folder will have a sub folder named Projects open this folder and inside you will find an example folder. You should now open NFPA & EN 12845 folder and select TEST.FHC project file and Open, you should now be looking at a very simple tree system with 4 sprinklers head like the one bellow.

 

 

 

Now we have opened the FHC project file we going to introduce some of the simpler commands to help you navigate around and view various properties.  FHC has many different methods of achieving the same thing you can use the drop-down menus and select the item, directly use the Toolbars and the quickest at all is to use Shortcuts, we will introduce you to the most frequently used View commands

 

 

View Commands

 

When you open a FHC project is always displayed in plan view but the hydraulic models which you will draw in the FHC program are 3-D and you can view them in a number of different isometric views. Try pressing the [F6] key, this will change the view to an isometric south easterly view, now if you press the [F7] key the view will be changed to Northwestly.

 

You can see a full list of all the different view commands by selecting the going to the menu View you should see the following

 

Try using the different shortcut Keys to see what effect it has on the FHC drawing. You will find a full list of the shortcut keys in Appendix A.

 

 

Calculate

 

Now we know how to change the display view, we will show you how to calculate the hydraulic model in its simplest form you can just press the [F12] key and this will calculate all the heads on the system If you press the key now you should see the following window.

 

 

We don't need to worry about all the settings at this time, we will explain them to you later. However, just check that the minimum velocity, maximum velocity and maximum pressure drop is as shown above and then press the OK button.  Once FHC has completed the calculation it will display a summary window and you will see at the top the source duty, this is the flow and pressure which is required at the starting node in the system to meet the systems design criteria and will look into this in more detail later on.

 

 

 

 

Properties

 

Now we have calculated the system we may wish to interrogate the hydraulic model to find out what flows and pressures in the pipes or what the various pipe losses are by using these commands you be better able to understand hydraulic model which you have entered you will use this information to diagnose errors or to optimise your system. If you place your mouse cursor anywhere over the FHC drawing area and then press the right hand mouse button you will see a context menu with a list of different attributes which can be displayed.  The image below shows the TEST1.FHC project file displaying the node numbers.  Try selecting the various attributes to see the information which is displayed you may notice if you select flow rate that there is a small arrow this is showing the direction of the flow. 

 

 

FHC has a 2^nd method which can display all the pipe properties in a single window you can access this command from menu View -> Pipe Properties or you can use the shortcut key [Ctrl+V].

 

The pipe properties window has 2 sections the top section marked in Red are attributes which belong to the pipe such as the the start and end node numbers, pipe size and length.  The 2nd set of information marked in Blue only displayed if the pipe has a nozzle and gives you such information as the K-factor, flow rate and so on.

 

This pipe properties window can remain open and as you select the various pipes in the system it is updated they can easily explore all the attributes.

 

Video tutorial 

 

You can now watch a short video which demonstrates all the different techniques that we covered above, we do recommend that you watch the video first and then try out each techniques before carrying on to the next lesson.