Steel Rigid Frame Building

[ford347]

Hey,

I've looked at the posts I could find regarding a rigid steel framed building and found a nice family for one, but my question is.......what is the best method for doing one of these structures. That family I found here in the forums looks like it takes care of the rigid frame itself, but as far as the roof purlins, wall girts etc., is there any particular method that is preferred over another amongst you structural buffs that would make life a little easier during development? I know this is broad, but anything should help.

Thanks

Josh

[patricks]

In my 2 years using Revit we have done many metal buildings here at my office (unfortunate, cheap **** buildings they are IMHO), but in the past I have always just modelled the purlins and girts as part of the compound wall or roof structure, and then just placed the purlins and girts in my details. However I think I'm going to start modelling at least the roof purlins using our Z-girt structural beam family. I still haven't made an adjustable eave strut that works just yet. I'll probably leave the wall girts as part of the wall structure simply because that's usually alot more complicated with doors, windows, etc.

It's good to try to model as much as you can, but unfortunately you never know exactly what the building components are going to look like until you get shop drawings in. And when you're doing a project that's going to be bid out, that can cause a ton of problems since you don't have a metal building detailer to work with during the design process. It has caused us a ton of problems and headaches on several of our projects because structural members were in places not originally planned for, other members got alot larger than planned for, etc.

But yeah just place the rigid frames in the model, and I typically use plain W8 columns and sloping beams for non-expandable endwall frames, and the rest will be left to the steel manufacturer. If you're using wind frames instead of x-bracing, try to locate those or tell the manufacturer where you want them. If you go with cable x-bracing, make sure they don't put it in a bay where you have windows or doors, etc.