I use Unistrut in my design work, and I was surprised to find Unistrut isn't included in the software's Frame Generator. Any suggestions?
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I use Unistrut in my design work, and I was surprised to find Unistrut isn't included in the software's Frame Generator. Any suggestions?
You can make your own by creating custom content.
I was afraid that was going to be my only choice. It just seems that Unistrut should be part of the software given how ubiquitous the stuff is in industry.
Apparently I can't submit a wish list item for some reason.
Look for the name of the part rather than the Unistrut name; as a brand the section may have been renamed to "cable channel", "cable tray", "ladder rack" etc. I guess very annoying for you, but definitely an area to take a look at.
Other brands you may consider looking for also are; Unitrunk, Redi-Rail and Armorduct.
Last edited by sarah194491; 2012-09-03 at 12:26 PM.
Great suggestions, but I cannot seem to locate these items in the 2012 Content Center. The issue remains, however, that being the ability to use the profiles from within the Frame Generator (FG). It may be different in 2013, but in 2012, the only profiles that the FG will access exist in the Structural Shapes category. Although there are many available profiles, the majority of the specialty items are metric (see the "Other" category). No Unistrut, Unitrunk, Redi-Rail, Armorduct or 80/20 profiles (to name a few) are available that I can see. I use the FG in much of my work, and many of profiles I need had to be created, such as Tee Rail, Unistrut and 80/20. I also create custom railings of various size tube and pipes. In order to use all available tube/pipe sizes, I have had to copy existing profiles and add the additional members in order to access them through the FG. This is quite time-consuming, and if you are running any FEA on these items, you have to ensure that the values for all of the columns (i.e. Section Modulus, Moments of Inertia, Torsional Rigidity) are correct.
If anyone would like to use the profiles I have, let me know. The creation of these profiles is pretty straightforward, but specific steps must be taken in sequence to be able to access them from within the FG.
Caveat Emptor: I have not calculated all of the necessary structural data for many of these items, so I will not verify that any FEA or sims run using these profiles will deliver usable data. I only do this on an as-needed basis. Anyone who uses these must verify their own data.
Last edited by Bunny; 2012-09-04 at 02:24 PM.
I found that Cooper's B-Line has their strut in Inventor, Revit, AutoCAD, Solidworks, and a number of other formats. But they don't have the fittings and hardware in 3D...yet. Still it's better than nothing.