Plastics Pipe Institute Releases Update to Design Calculator

The Plastics Pipe Institute, Inc. has released a major update to its Building & Construction Division’s Plastic Pipe Design Calculator, a free software tool for the design of plastic pressure pipe and tubing systems using CPVC, HDPE, PEX, PE-RT, PP-R and PP-RCT. The calculator is intended to be used for applications such as plumbing, water service, fire protection, hydronic piping, radiant heating & cooling, snow and ice melting, geothermal ground loops, district heating, chilled water and turf conditioning.

The latest updates in version 3.0 of the calculator include the addition of more than 50 new pipe sizes, methanol as a fluid choice for geothermal designs, sodium chloride and calcium chloride brine solutions as fluid choices for chilled water and the new Static Water Column Pressure function.

This new function is the sixth tool available in the calculator and will help designers to estimate the pressure inside piping at the bottom of a geothermal borehole or at the bottom of a multi-story plumbing, fire protection or hydronic system.

The calculator allows the user to select either IP/US or Metric/SI working units, as well as multiple fluids. Fluid temperatures and mix ratios are chosen by the user. Results can be viewed, printed or emailed.

The calculator can be found at plasticpipe.org/buildingconstruction/bcd-calculator.html or at plasticpipecalculator.com.