Weights and center of gravity (Am I Pushing the Revit Limits)

[DoTheBIM]

So the boss has this idea that he wants to implement. Assemble trusses, sheathing, felt paper, bracing, etc on the ground. crane it up 5 storys and set in place. I've created a model in Revit and views to represent what we want to do. So I was thinking a bit beyond like normal and was wondering if I could calculate the center of gravity of this assembly and the assembled weight. Anyone have any ideas? Eye candy attached.

I already tried exporting to AutoCAD and using mass properties but I can't change denisities. Revit has a place in materials to enter material weights but, where can I see this data output to?

[cliff collins]

Interesting question.

Sounds like a job for Revit Structure, Tekla, or some other 3rd party app that will
calculate those variables from the model.

Catia can probably do this--and there is an "architectural workbench" version
of Catia that Ghery Partners has developed--very pricy, though.

See if your Structural engineer can shed any light? Do they use Revit Structure
or Navisworks, Tekla, RAM, etc?

Let us know your findings........

cheers.

[DoTheBIM]

Hahaha. Our structural engineer...if only. Anyway... I figured there were other programs that could accomplish this (thanks for the list), but was wondering what the purpose of the weights in the materials are if one cannot do any totals calculations for them. IOW... what was the intention of having that kind of data exposed in Revit? Are they exposed in Revit Structure for calculations like this? I could download the trial version and give it a go if so.

[david_peterson]

Ahh, but you can.
You just need to schedule it. However, it won't give you the desired result, just the total weight.
You can get the total steel weight of a structure either by member type or total.
Take a look on the RS side of things, I know that question has been solved before. But I don't think you can get the centroid of the panel. But that's not really what you want anyway. You want the center of the mass at the top, not the center of the panel since you'll be picking it from the top. Now you've got a little bit of an issue.

[DoTheBIM]

I'm not seeing where I can add the Material weight to the schedule. Volume is the closest I can seem to get it in RAC2009

[david_peterson]

Try this (http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=97258&highlight=STEEL+WEIGHT+SCHEDULE) or This (http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=59947&highlight=STEEL+WEIGHT+SCHEDULE)

[DoTheBIM]

ahh i see... thanks for that. Those threads applied to mostly component families and my assembly is mostly system families. so I applied the shared parameter via project parameter and it works. All accept for my masses... Why did I make an in place mass... <sigh> Anyway at least there's a semi automatic way to calculate total weight.

[cliff collins]

Good tips, all.

So--a "mass" has no "mass"? Irony at its finest...............

cheers.

[DoTheBIM]

oh it has a mass but it appears that masses aren't material schedulable (<- Is that a word? ;D)