Equipment Materials Databank

Materials of construction are used by SuperPro Designer as one of the possible adjustments to the estimation of their purchase cost, see Purchase Cost Adjustments. Equipment that use the built-in purchase cost estimation model receive a cost estimate based on an assumed material of construction (the assumption is part of the built-in cost model) and later they use their actual material factor to adjust (scale) the final estimate. The ‘SuperPro (User)’ database contains an equipment materials databank with a limited set of records for construction materials and only for some of the equipment types supported by the application. However, users may extend the list of material factors by populating the ‘SuperPro (User)’ databank with more values for selected { Equipment Type , Material of Construction } pairs.

Viewing the Contents of the Equipment Materials Databank

To access the equipment materials databanks, use the Databanks } Equipment } Materials... menu item from the main menu (or hit F6 as a shortcut). In the Equipment Materials Databank Dialog that comes up you get a list of all the available materials that exist in the ‘SuperPro (User)’ database. Select a material that has no material factor specified (they are shown in pink color and have -1.0 as their value) and you may edit its material factor directly. If you need to introduce a new material that doesn’t yet exist in the database, then see Adding and Deleting Equipment Materials.

Adding and Deleting Equipment Materials

A new material can be added to the databank kept in the ‘SuperPro (User)’ database. Keeping the material in the ‘SuperPro (User)’ databank will make the corresponding material factor for an equipment type readily available (as an option) in any future process simulations that may use that equipment resource. In order to add a new material, bring up the Equipment Materials Databank Dialog by selecting Databanks } Equipment } Materials... from the main menu of the application. A table will show all the materials and their factors that are currently defined in the databank for the selected equipment type. To edit the material factor for an existing entry, click in the cell of the value and edit the factor. If you want to introduce a new material, click on the  button and type the name for the new material. Please note that the material name must not conflict with any other materials already defined in the databank. After the name is accepted, a new entry will be added in the table and be given the default value of ‘-1’. Click in the cell of the factor and type the correct value. If you wish to delete a material, select the line representing the factor you wish to delete from the table by clicking on the row button (showing the index of the entry) and then click on the button.

Basic Essential & User-Defined Materials & Factors in the SuperPro (User) DB

The list of materials present in the ‘SuperPro (User)’ database, are considered as belonging to three categories:

a)  Basic Materials

b)  Essential Materials

c)   User-Defined Materials

All materials that are present in the ‘SuperPro (User)’ database upon installation of the program are considered as ‘Basic’. You are free to edit and/or even delete them if you think you will never have a need for some of them. If you have modified the material factors for some equipment of a basic material, saved it in your ‘SuperPro (User)’ database and later you change your mind and decide to revert to the property values as they came (‘out-of-the-box’) you can accomplish this by clicking on the  button. Also, if you have deleted one or more materials and later you wish to recover (restore) their definitions in your ‘SuperPro (User)’ database, you can click on the  button. This action will not only restore the definition of all basic materials, but their factor values (where known). There are a few materials (“Concrete”, “CS”, “Glass”, “Plastic”, “SS304”,& “SS316”) that are considered “Essential” and cannot be deleted. The proper functioning of some equipment in the software require their presence and they are automatically copied to your process model as soon as the equipment that requires them is created and for that reason, their definition must exist in the ‘SuperPro (User)’ database. Finally, “User-Defined” materials (and material factors) are all materials that the user has introduced beyond the set of basic materials that came with the software. Of course, user-defined materials (and factors) can be edited and deleted at any time but once deleted they cannot later be recovered.