Pipe Stress Analysis - Caesar vs AutoPIPE : engineering

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Pipe Stress Analysis - Caesar vs

AutoPIPE (self.engineering)
submitted 8 months ago by TrainOfThought6

My office is finally looking at

upgrading our stress software from
Algor Pipepak (yes, I know we're
dinosaurs), and I've been tasked
with investigating the options. It
seems like the two best candidates
are Caesar II and Autopipe. I've
been fiddling with the demo version
of Caesar, and I'm in the process of
getting a demo for Autopipe so I can
compare them myself. We mainly
work with ASME B31.1 and B31.3.
To cut to the chase, does anyone
here have experience with one or
both of these programs and perhaps
have some opinions to share?

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This post was submitted on 31 Jan 2014

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sorted by: best
[] ultimate_ed Mechanical
ago

3 points 8 months

Caesar II is kind of like what IBM was

back in the mainframe days - the saying
used used to be "Nobody ever got fired
for buying IBM."
Caesar is probably better than 80% of
the marketshare for pipe stress analysis
software. A lot of that comes from them
catching on to the switch from
mainframes to PC's at the right time
back in the 80's. They were the first to
offer a PC based stress program.
To some degree, I think they almost fell
into the same trap against AutoPIPE as
AutoPIPE came out with a strong
graphical based product that was
Windows while Caesar clung to DOS into
the early 2000's. Coade's first attempt at
a Windows version of Caesar (4.0) was

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Pipe Stress Analysis - Caesar vs AutoPIPE : engineering

an unusable mess and we kept on with

the last DOS version (3.24) for several
more years until 5.0 came along.
I don't know where you're located, but
here in Houston, odds are better that a
stress engineer is going to be familiar
with Caesar. Though, that is changing
somewhat as there are some big players
here that have switched to AutoPIPE.
We had largely stuck with Caesar
because (before Intergraph bought out
Coade) the annual renewal fee was
insanely cheap. The AutoPIPE guys
would call on us and when it came down
to pricing, they were 10x what we were
paying for Caesar. Now, though, I've
come to appreciate that Caesar hadn't
really been making much in the way of
improvements because their fees were
probably barely keeping the lights on.
Intergraph came in and jacked the
prices up to what are, while probably
more realistic, much more expensive
levels in line with AutoPIPE.
Another consideration will be what your
company uses for piping design
software. If you are already an
Intergraph house on the piping side,
they'll probably cut you a better deal to
use Caesar and vice versa on the
AutoPlant/AutoPIPE side from Bentley.
Since you're people don't sound like they
are familiar with either system, I think
you'll find the learning curve to be about
the same. I've been using Caesar for
close to 20 years, so I'm quite
comfortable with what it can and can't
do well. I've only used AutoPIPE a few
times, but found it reasonably intuitive
to work with.
permalink
[] getsomegetsome Mechanical
months ago

3 points 8

I work for an engineering consulting firm

that works primarily in the
petrochemical/chemical industry. As you
know, this is pretty much just B31.1 and
B31.3. I work in the mechanical/piping
group, and we do a fair bit of pipe stress
analysis. We use Caesar II for pipe
stress analysis. It's pretty intuitive, and
the manual is pretty complete, IMO.
From what I've heard, Caesar has a
better load case calculation strategy
than Autopipe, in that its calculations are
based on the complete load case taken
as a whole matrix rather than the
mathematical summation of separate

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Pipe Stress Analysis - Caesar vs AutoPIPE : engineering

case components that Autopipe

generates. That may have changed since
I heard this, but we trust Caesar II with
some pretty critical applications.
Anyway, just my two cents.

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[] TrainOfThought6 [S] 2 points 8 months
ago*

Find us on

Yeah, I definitely like Caesar's load

case editor. Autopipe must have
some method other than directly
adding the cases, right? Even Algor
calculates the expansion case as the
difference of the operating and
sustained cases. For linear systems
it's the same thing, but is it actually
kosher with B31.3 to calculate the
expansion case independently when
you have nonlinear supports?

a community for 6 years

Edit - I see, it seems that Autopipe

covers this with sequential loading.
permalink parent
[] memphisrained 1 point 8 months ago

CaesarII seems more widely adopted.

permalink
[] rylnalyevo Naval Arch / Structural - Offshore
point 8 months ago

I am pipe stress noob, but I've found

Autopipe straightforward to pick up after
working through their tutorials. As for
why my company uses it instead of
Caesar, I'm not certain, but it probably
has something to do with the fact that
we use another Bentley product (SACS)
as our structural beam element analysis
software.
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[] trenon 1 point 8 months ago

C2 will be adopting parts of NozzlePro

directly into it in the next major revision.
This could lead to quite an advantage
over AutoPipe for the next while IF it
actually happens.
NozzlePro is written by the same guy
that wrote the original Caesar, Tony
Paulin.
Other than that I use both on a daily
basis. Different clients ask for different
software to be used. It is mostly
dependent now on what package you
use for drafting / 3d models. If you use
Autoplant use Autopipe, if you use
Cadworx or Smartplant use Caesar.
Anything else will work about equally

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Pipe Stress Analysis - Caesar vs AutoPIPE : engineering

Page 4 of 4

well with either although I have found

Autopipe imports files slightly better.
Caesar's features have become very
stagnant over the last 4 years yet
somehow the cost keeps increasong.
Autopipe seems more interested in
developing new features / ease of use.
The buried piping modeler in Autopipe
take slightly longer but is easier to
manipulate / make changes. The one in
Caesar is archaic and painful.
Autopipe has many advantages in ease
of use and speed. I have used Caesar
much longer than Autopipe yet I can
build and run models in autopipe much
quicker.
Autopipe has pipe classes. Want to
change the wall thickness of all the 10"
pipe in a model? Great change one
number. In caesar you will be trying to
chase through some "spreadsheets" to
see all the places where wall thickness
has been defined. I say "spreadsheets"
because they are completely unintellignet. No copy, paste, drag values
etc.
All that being said I still use Caesar
more than Autopipe due to client
requirements.
permalink

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