STRUCTURAL DESIGN W/ REVIT?

[WATTSAIA]

At AU I asked about possible structural engineering interface w/ Revit.
I use an Excel Template to do my Seismic /Wind analysis. Does any one know if Autodesk is considering working on a structural interface?
:?:

[gregcashen]

Revit Structural has been talked about and I believe they are working on something. I would stay tuned to see how it develops, as all of their other efforts have provided us with some amazing tools. We have been promised improved structural tools so that the ones we currently use behave the way we want them to. Long term?, I think you will have something to help you out.

Are you talking about Type V stuff? If so, with 6.0, there is the possibility of exporting shared parameters, which opens up a lot of possibilities without an API. I am going to try my hand at writing an Access VBA program to take the exported data and some user input and produce horizontal diaphragm, chord force and shearwall design with holdowns. In the meantime, check out WoodWorks Design Office (do a google search). They have a nice little program for around $200 that will do this for you.

For bigger stuff, take a look at Enercalc.

[WATTSAIA]

I am using a Seismic/wind analysis Excel Template called Maxquake.
It is quite flexible and can be easily adjusted for all building code criteria including CBC. I don't know enough about data bases or programing, it would be nice to be able to produce a shearwall schedule using Revit.
What I do now is import the Excel schedules into ADT . I have not yet tried to import the schedules into Revit from ADT, but I assume it would be Revit friendly...I guess I will have to be satisfied with doing it this way until the Autocad people figure out a simpler interface with structural packages.......?

[gregcashen]

I have a shearwall annotation family that I use to create shearwall schedules as well as show the shearwalls on the plans and elevations. It uses shared parameters to hold info such as shear panel construction (3/8" OSB w/ 8d @ 6/12), holdown at right end, left end, sill plate thickness (2x or 3x), end stud sizes (2x4 or 4x6 or...), anchor bolts (5/8" A.B. @ 48" O.C.). It is not intelligentin the sense that it does not design itself, but it contains the info and can be scheduled. I will certainly be playng with the new schedule features and ODBC output to see if I can get it to work a bit harder for me.

Let me know, I'll gladly share it with you.

[J-G]

Greg if you have time could you shortly describe the shear wall family? I created an annotation family to replace the shear wall symbols we used to use (just a dashed line with a triangle callout), but beyond that it is just a dumb symbol. How are you showing it on the plans and elvations, and is it a tag or generic?

[gregcashen]

It displays as a dashed line on the floor plan of the level to which the bottom of the shearwall is attached. and it contains a shearwall tag, which is simply an instance parameter that is referenced in the shearwall schedule. In elevations, it shows up as a dashed outline showing the extents of the shearwall, including the height -- I have found that several contractors didn't understand what shearwalls are supposed to do, and so they often didn't complete the load path by taking the plywood up to the diaphragm. I suppose I could have detailed it more, but I this is a simple way to show where the boundary of the shearwalls is in the plans -- It also includes the same shearwall tag in the elevation view. It contains several instance parameters for the holdowns, plywood, nailing, bolting, end stud sizes, sill thickness, etc. It is easy enough to schedule from.

It is the very first family I ever made and I didn't have a clear idea of how to make it, so it is probably not "optimized". I'll have a look at it tomorrow and see if I can clean it up and post it.

Greg

P.S. I have since figured out that I can also split walls into shearwall segments and makes them "shearwalls" in the structural usage pulldown under wall properties. I think that is a better way to manage them. With the ability to do formulas in schedules as of today....errr, whenever we get 6.0, I think I will just do a wall schedule from that and make the annotation "dumberer". I can then calculate some of the forces from the geometry of the model (once I know the lateral loads and diaphragm shears).

[gregcashen]

Alright, I don't have time to rework it right now.