column-beam connection

[marcknapen]

I don't know why I cannot connect the beam at the column. There always comes a gap of some centimeter between them. I Cannot give the beam a lenght equal to the distance between the two columns. Align doesn't works.....
See figure: floor plan 1 and 3D view

[Nic M.]

Marc,

You have to edit the structural family.
extend the extrusion to the ref planes "left" and "right"
See attach

[marcknapen]

Nic,

It's a family of the Be-localiser.
The left side of the extrusion [in the floor plan view] is constrained to the ref plane 'member left'.
When I try to unlock this [in order to lock it to the ref plane 'left'] there appears a warning
"Can't unlock alignments from Family Template" ....

Marc

[Nic M.]

Never noticed that.
My family was created from a metric familly in Revit 6 or 7.
I never understood the behavior of structural families. I gues that they have to behave the way that they do for the analasys part of the structure(corners have to join, etc.). They sure don't represent real situations and in my experience are a real pain to use in a building.

Maybe someone else can explain what's going on.

[A3D]

I gave up... structural elements DO NOT WORK properly in Revit.
I can't even do the simplest RC structure without running into problems.
Use generic families instead. Of course, I don't know how they will behave if imported into Revit Structure.

Hopefully the Factory will fix it soon and there are steps in the right direction, although very small. In version 7, the gap you're talking about was there for RC elements too. In 8, if you join only a beam to one column, the results are right.

However, problems occur when two beams join a column, when a beam joins automatically a non-bearing wall, etc.

[patricks]

I usually have a small gap when beams attach to columns, but I figured that was because in real life there is a gap, and the beam is actually bolted to a plate that is welded to the column.

What doesn't work correctly, however, is if you need a beam to attach to a column off-center (say for example you want the faces of a beam and column to align). Many times I'll get beams running at angles when one end tried to join and the other end doesn't.