New to AutoCAD 2012 Civil 3D - Box Culvert and Utility Line Encasements

[SMCollier343726]

Hi, my name is Seth Collier and I work as a Designer for an engineering firm, Garver, in North Little Rock, AR.

I have just started working on a utility relocation project at the Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport, formally Little Rock National Airport. I am not new to Auto-CAD or basic 3D modeling, but I am new to Civil 3D 2012. We use numerous design software's, but Civil 3D 2012 is just now starting to be used by myself for this particular project.

I have two(2) questions:

How do you change the thickness of a box culvert? For a sewer drainage line which is 84"x60" with an 8" thickness, however, it seems as if a calculation is required to change the thickness as it is stuck on 7". Also is there a way without using "press-pull" to hollow out the box culvert. In this way the 8" thickness can be be shown all around as well as being able to view the 84"x60" hollow space.

What is the best way to encase a 4 way 4" duct back and 4 way 6" duct bank with concrete in the 3D model. Additionally, is there a simple way to add some back-fill to a water and gas line that run parallel with the duct banks.

Any help/advice you can give me would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Seth Collier
[ModeratorAction] I do not recommend posting your phone number [/ModeratorAction]

[MHultgren]

Hello Seth,
Welcome to C3D. There are a couple ways you could approach the these. One would be to create the 'parts' using C3D's part builder and the second would be to simply add the graphical representation. It depends on what type of quantities you will be required to provide for your Bill of Materials and how you want them to look in the plan and profiles. I know this may not be much help, but the approach you use depends mainly on the output you desire.

[jmaeding.89426]

You could try to use corridors to run a section (subassembly) over an alignment, but then you must learn a lot and experiment and crash a lot.
What I tell people is to set up your alignment and profile, then saveas to another drawing, 3d orbit your drawing and explode the alignment. You will then have a 3d pline. Then draw your section and use sweep to run that shape over the 3d pline.

We at H&A have tools that automate all this so I know it works, but we make our pline straight from alignment info, not by exploding.
Pretty junky answer eh? Here in this ultra BIM environment per Autodesk's marketing, we have essentially no tools for modeling existing utils in any decent way. They still do not get that pipes are alignments with diameters along them, not "parts".
Good luck with trying C3D to do what you want, hope you have unlimited budget.