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Civil 3D provides several automated methods for building and editing your pressure pipe networks. Grips can manipulate pieces of your pipe network to customize or repair your model when things don’t go as expected. 

Start with the grips on a simple 6” ductile iron pipe. Follow up with a couple of fittings, an elbow and a tee, then move on to a gate valve. Finally, conclude with some grips used in combinations of pipe, fittings and apertures. 

fig 1: plan view
fig. 2 3D view
Fig. 3 pipes, grips plan view
Fig 4: pipe, grips 3D view

A: “Lengthen” Grip – This grip is shaped like an arrowhead and is located on either end of an unattached pipe. It can be used to lengthen or shorten pipes along the current path by selectin and dragging in the desired direction. 

fig 5: lengthen

B: “Continue Layout Grip – This grip is located on either end of an unattached pipe and is in the shape of a plus sign. By selecting it and dragging it, Civil 3D will add in the required pipe and fittings to follow the path you have designated. When you change directions, a rotational compass may appear in the form of a circle with lines. The lines indicate recommended angle corresponding to standard pipe fittings. You can override this by manually typing in an alternative degree of rotational. This will be shown in a later example below. 

Fig. 6: continue layout with rotational compass
Fig. 7: continue layout after compass directional selection

C: “Location” End Grip – This grip is in the form of a solid square and is located on either end of an unattached pipe end. By selecting and dragging the grip, you can rotate the pipe in either direction on the existing plane of orientation. The rotation point of the pipe stays fixed. See below. This fixed point in an unattached pipe is the Location” End Grip on the far end of the pipe or, if attached, then the midpoint of the attached point end. 

Fig. 8: both ends unattached
Fig. 9 one end attached

D: “Location” Center Grip – This grip is in the center of the pipe section and is shaped in the form of a solid square. This grip moves the pipe section. Maintaining the pipe in its current form and direction, it moves the pipe along its current plane of reference. 

Fig. 10: location
Fig. 11 Elbow Grips plan view
Fig. 12: Elbow Grips 3D view

E: “Flip” Grip  This grip is in the shape of an arrow and can be found on both collars of the fixture. Clicking on this grip flips the fixture’s opposite end 180 degrees from its current direction. 

Fig. 13 Flip, left side grip
Fig. 14 Flip Right Side grip

F: “Rotation” Grip  This grip comes in the form of a solid circle at the end of a control arm. In a plan view, rotating this grip will rotate the part around the center point of the fitting. 

Fig. 15 Rotation
Fig. 16: TEE grips plan view
Fig. 17: TEE grips 3D view
Fig. 18: Gate Valve grips plan view
Fig. 19 Gate Valve Grips 3D View
Fig 20 Lengthen

The lengthen grip is being used to extend the pipe to connect with the fitting. When you reach the point of connection, the above circle/cross will appear, and you can now release the pipe to connect it. If you wish to disconnect the pipe, select it then right-click to bring up the menu. Select disconnect part and select the part you want disconnected from the pipe. 

While the above-mentioned grips are not all that exist, they should give you a start in understanding the possibilities of manipulating your pipe, fittings and apertures to help repair a broken pipe network or, alternately, edit the network to your design needs. This is not intended as a primary layout tool for entering your pipe network into your project, but merely another method to edit your pressure pipe network to achieve your goals. 

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