Beams canitlever over columns

[jrichardson]

Is there a certain method this should be done. I have a simple single story retail with beams cantilevering over the columns. The beam wants to keep snapping back to the column as if it will not disconnect from it. My hope was to be able to put in this preliminary beam line, dimension the beam cants and be able to change the dimension of the cants when it is designed and the end beams would move. The only way so far that I could even get the beams to display as cants is to put them on a different level than the top of columns were set to, than adjust there elevations. Any ideas??

[Paul Andersen]

I wasn't able to reproduce this on my end. If you could post a sample we could all have a look at it. One thing that should work is to set the offending columns top offset parameter to -1'-0" or some arbitrary dimension below the level until the members are sized and then readjust.

[jrichardson]

I have started a new test file from scratch and it seams to be working fine for now. I think I was having problems with my live project because of how the tops of the columns were reference to a certain plane and what plane the beams were being inserted on. It is my first project and I do not think I have followed all the rules of member placement. I am hoping to meet some people at AU that I can have some conversations with for things like this that are to hard to put into writing. thanks for the reply.

[David Sammons]

For double cantilever beam framing, I add reference planes perpendicular to the beams and located at the centerlines of the cantilever connections. I dimension the reference plane locations from the column centerlines and I then drag the ends of the beams to the reference planes.

Next, I add detail lines to represent the cantilever beam connections and I lock these detail lines at equal distance from the reference planes

When the cantilever dimension changes, you change the dimension to the reference plan and the detail lines will move with the reference plane. However, you will still need to drag the ends of the beams to the reference planes.

Refer to the attached file for an example.

I am looking into this some more to see if there is a way to lock the ends of the beams to the reference planes so that the ends of the beams will move with the reference planes.