Perform Stage Storage Analysis in Civil 3D (3:35 min)

Storm Drain design is one of the most important parts of a project. Engineers and Designers ask themselves all the time: “Where will we drain the site to? Where will the detention pond be?” or, “How large do our storm drain pipes need to be?” There are so many variables to consider and analysis tools to use, which can often leave us wondering what to do next. Let’s see how Civil 3D can help us streamline the storm drain layout and analysis portions of our project.

Stage Storage Analysis in Autodesk Civil 3D:

Using the Stage storage command, we can calculate incremental and cumulative volumes of a basin. Within Civil 3D, a basin can be defined by using: An existing surface, by selecting contours within an existing surface, existing polylines in the drawing, and Contour elevation and area data such as created with a “PLINE” command.

Performing a Stage Storage Analysis in Autodesk Civil 3D:

1. Select a surface area, right click and choose “Surface Properties”.

2. On our Surface Properties window, select the “Analysis” tab, choose “User-Defined contours” in the analysis type dropdown. We can then choose how many contours to define and click the arrow to populate a list below. We will also need to adjust the elevation should we need anything different than what’s listed.

3. We will click on the information tab in the same window, select the button just to the right of the surface style drop down, select display and adjust our display to show our user contours. After selecting a color and “OK” we will now see where our new high-water elevation is.

4. Next, we’ll select the “Analyze” tab, the design panel, and choose “Stage Storage”.

5. This will open a new window allowing us to fill in a report that can be exported to SSA for further use. We just want the volume in this case. Adjust the calculation method, and definition options and click “Define Basin”. We can then define the basin name and polylines (if you have them in), or extract them from a surface, and click “Define”.

6. We can then select an area our high-water elevation that we extracted and hit enter, and we can then see our volumes.