curtain walls with wall infill are joining?

[Justin Marchiel]

I am using curtain walls for a tilt up concrete panels. i dont want the curtain walls to join so i dont allow join with the curtain walls. the problem is that the walls inside the curtain walls are joining to each other, and there doesn't seem to be anyway to stop it. i understand that i should use walls instead of panels because i need to hosts windows and doors.

Is this the expected behaviour? Is there a work around besides drawing a line at the joins?

Thanks

Justin

[dbaldacchino]

Justin,

when I create a curtain wall with vertical grids and change the panels to a wall, as long as they have a grid in between, they don't try to join. If I butt two curtainwalls side by side, even if I disallow join for both ends, they join. But moving one curtainwall away by some distance (perhaps the distance of the joint itself), then they don't clean up. If I were modeling tilt-up, I'd do a continuous curtainwall and I would use a thin custom mullion to designate the joint, backer rod and sealant between each panel.

[Justin Marchiel]

that is kind of the direction that i was going to go in after i looked at my options. the project is still in the design phase so i was no going to worry about the actual joints just yet.

Thanks for the input

Justin

[patricks]

I just finished a tilt-up building. I just used a concrete wall type and placed vertical reveals at the joint locations.

[dfriesen]

I just finished a tilt-up building. I just used a concrete wall type and placed vertical reveals at the joint locations.That's the sort of situation where I'd like to be able to dimension (or align, for that matter) to the centerline of the reveal. Unfortunately, the ref plane in the reveal profile does not respond. Something for the wishlist?

[rgesner]

You can make it one big full length wall and use the "Split Walls with Gap" tool to put parametric gaps in the wall. See http://bim-wit.blogspot.com/2006/03/modifying-split-command.html for how to install this tool.

[mibzim]

I just finished a tilt-up building. I just used a concrete wall type and placed vertical reveals at the joint locations.

Patricks
We are doing the same and seems to work fine - i used a triangular reveal so was able to dimension to the centreline, although it took time to make sure i picked the correct line. Seems to work okay so far.

Just out of interest, why would you be using a curtain wall jmarchiel-barch? I know ppl here use them for a lot of different applications and not just the plain old glass curtain wall. What benefits do you see in curtain walls, because i'm probably not using them to their full potential.

thanks

[Justin Marchiel]

i have read a bunch of threads about curtain walls being good for tilts because of the mullion being the joints. i suppose that using regular walls with sweep is good as well, but i think a big benefit to curtain walls is that you would be able to schedule each panel as opposed to having an entire wall with sweeps. another benefit is that as the design progreses i could insert a custom curtain wall panel to replace a wall panel.

I think overall a curtain wall will allow more flexibility over time, so that i why i decided to go this route.

Justin

[mibzim]

Thanks justin...

might try it in future and see how we go

[Joshua Kohl]

Patricks
We are doing the same and seems to work fine - i used a triangular reveal so was able to dimension to the centreline, although it took time to make sure i picked the correct line. Seems to work okay so far.

Just out of interest, why would you be using a curtain wall jmarchiel-barch? I know ppl here use them for a lot of different applications and not just the plain old glass curtain wall. What benefits do you see in curtain walls, because i'm probably not using them to their full potential.

thanks

mibzim -- You can dimension to the center of a V reveal in section and plan only. You can't dimension to the center of it in elevation, how did you get around that?

[dbaldacchino]

I've been using curtain walls for tilt-up for a couple of projects now. As to when the walls (which are used as curtain panels) join, especially at 90 degree corners, the key is to either leave an actual gap between the two walls (ex" 3/4" typical joint) or add a vertical mullion joint. If they do join, the only way you can get them to separate is by splitting the curtainwall, delete the small segment and re-adjust the end to be a certain distance from the other curtainwall.

Another approach I'm seeing by another team is to use stacked walls. In this case we have the concrete tilt-up wall, an interior furred out partition that has gypsum that goes to 4" above ceiling and varying finishes applied to the tilt-up. The team's approach so far has been to use stacked walls in order to get nice sections without having to manually edit anything. It's taken a lot of wall type creation to get this to work though and they still have not tackled the joints, which have to be done through reveals. I cannot recall if reveals will cut all through the stacked wall or just the segment that hosts it. I advised to stay away from stacked walls but they want to pursue.

My approach is still through curtain walls and I'll have 3 layers with panels joined to each other so openings cut through the 3 curtainwalls and stay coordinated (concrete tilt-up with their own joints, an interior fur-out basic wall and an exterior "finish" curtainwall with it's own joints). We'll see how all this goes!