Create duct systems

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In this lesson, we will cover creating and editing duct system types and creating and editing duct systems.

00:11

In this model, mechanical equipment and air terminals have been placed.

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We will create a few duct systems

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to begin switch to the Systems ribbon.

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And in the HVAC Panel click Duct.

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When you activate the Duct tool, you can scroll down in the properties palette to the mechanical section and you can see the system type parameter.

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Before you create duct work, you can choose the system type,

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and there are three by default based on the three system classifications, supply air, return air and exhaust air.

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I'll leave it set to supply air and then I'll place a duct segment.

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When I end the command and select the duct, you can see a Duct Systems contextual ribbon.

01:05

So be aware that when you create ductwork, duct systems will be created with each connected duct segment or run of duct.

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So in order to create a duct system with equipment and air terminals, you can simply create duct and connect them,

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or you can create them manually and there are some benefits in doing so.

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But real quick before we do that manually,

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I'm going to select the duct again and switch to the Duct Systems contextual ribbon and then I'll click Edit Type.

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You can create multiple duct system types as needed.

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And so really the main thing that this will do is indicate,

01:52

sorry the main thing it can do is control the graphics for the components in that duct system.

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So for example you could have a dedicated outside supply air system along with the normal supply air system in the building,

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and you could control the graphic override so that they appear differently.

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You can also control the calculation method for your duct systems.

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So if you didn't want to calculate anything, you could set it to none or you could leave it to flow only your performance

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if you needed to. If you weren't too concerned about calculations.

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I'll leave this one set to all and then I'll click Ok.

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And I'm gonna go ahead and remove this duct and we will create a duct system for these exam rooms here.

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When I select an air terminal, you can see a create systems panel in the contextual ribbon and it currently has a Duct tool.

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And this is because there is a duct connector on the air terminal.

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When I click Duct, the create duct system dialog opens and once again, supply air is listed here in the system type dropdown.

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If we had additional system types based on the supply air system classification, then those would appear here as well.

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So important thing to keep in mind is that the system classification of the connectors must match the system classification of the system types.

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So I know that's a lot but it system classification must match for those components to be added to a system.

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I'll leave the system name set to the default name and then I'll select Open in System Editor and I'll click Ok.

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Since open in System Editor was selected, Revit goes into edit duct system mode.

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Since Add to System is selected, I can begin selecting additional air terminals to add to the system,

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and I can even use a window to select multiple air terminals.

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If I selected one by default, I could select Remove from System and then remove an air terminal.

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I'll go ahead and add that one back.

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And then I could also click Select Equipment while in Edit Duct System mode that's also available outside of the edit mode.

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But for now I'll click Select Equipment, and then I'll select the equipment and click Finish Editing System.

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Afterwards, all those components turned blue because that was the color assigned to the graphic overrides for this system.

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Let's create another one for these exam rooms.

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And in this case I'm going to select all of the air terminals first and then click Duct and I will not select Open in System Editor.

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I'll just click Ok.

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And when I do on the contextual ribbon, you can see that select equipment is available and I can do it right now and now the equipment is added.

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And so once again, there's a couple different ways to go about creating duct systems.

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But once you do, you have a system that keeps track of the components that the equipment is supplying.

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And when I select it, I can switch to the Duct Systems contextual ribbon.

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I can see the total flow on the system and when ductwork is created then I can see the static pressure as well.

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The other thing that duct systems allow you to do is generate layouts

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and that's typically they're not perfect, but they are a way to help you begin modeling ductwork.

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So in this case I'm going to click Generate Layout and then I'm gonna click Settings and this opens up the Duct Conversion Settings dialog.

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And this is available in the Mechanical Settings dialog as well.

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And I'm gonna make some adjustments here and I'm going to change the duct type for the branch to radius, elbows, taps

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and I'm gonna leave the flex duct type set to none so that flex duct will not be placed.

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And then I'm gonna select this layout here and then finish the layout,

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and as I said it's usually not perfect.

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There's usually some issue and in this case I have an error and there are warning and this isn't connected like it should be.

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So I'm just gonna make some modifications here real quick.

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So at this point since we have created duct work then we can use the duct sizing tool to auto size our duct work,

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and you can also manually create it and then use that as well.

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An important thing to keep in mind is that you do not want any open ends when you're doing that.

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And so I'm going to cap this open end and then I'm gonna create a section view so I can take a look at the warning that I got,

07:06

and this was not properly connected.

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We'll take a look here and I'm just going to delete that connection and then I'm going to copy over one the connection from this air terminal.

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And I will connect that.

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Now We have a quick layout here and I'm gonna select that and you can see the duct pipe sizing tool.

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But before you do that, it's important to add splits using the split element tool,

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where you want a break in the system here or in the duct run so that Revit knows where to change size.

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So I'm gonna click the duct pipe sizing tool and I'm going to change it to the equal friction method,

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and I will set the branch sizing to match connector size and I will restrict the height to 8 inches.

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And then I will click. Ok.

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And now my duct is sized.

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So you can create duct systems and then generate layouts and then use the sizing tool to auto size your duct work.

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And it's always good to go back and double check Make sure it's correct.

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But those are quick ways to get your duct modeled.