Charlotte Sauer's Communities Activities

RAM Elements Masonry Module design assumptions

Charlotte Sauer — Wed, 01 Aug 2018 17:29:26 GMT

I'm currently designing a tall CMU shear wall system for a structure, but keep getting design failures due to 'insufficient shear strength' or 'excessive compressive stress'.

To try and find the root of my problems, I was wondering: what does RAM Elements assume as the compressive strength of grout, for a 'full grouting' wall? And strength of mortar assumed? Further, do you know of any complications with the program when masonry shear walls are designed to large heights? (Our walls are 6 stories tall.)

RAM Elements Remove Level Restraint

Charlotte Sauer — Mon, 30 Jul 2018 16:55:15 GMT

Hello,

Due to some architectural elements, my RAM Model has a partial level in some locations. This level however doesn't interact with the CMU walls I am currently trying to design in RAM Elements - Masonry wall module. Is there any way I can remove the partial level's pinned restraint (shown at Level 2 below) that the Masonry module is creating at this location?

RAM Frame Member Forces

Charlotte Sauer — Fri, 27 Jul 2018 15:30:29 GMT

Hello,

I'm wondering how RAM Frame calculates the 'Member Forces' of a lateral wall element? Is this value the maximum value from the wall element, or an averaged value?

The reason I'm wondering is that I have imported my RAM Frame model into RAM Elements to use the masonry module, which uses Design strips. I'm getting slightly different values for each load case between Frame and Elements, and am trying to determine why.

RAM Connection Templates

Charlotte Sauer — Tue, 17 Jul 2018 13:33:23 GMT

I've been following the 'Creating Custom Connection Templates' tutorial to try and create a set of template connections for designing column base plates. My problem is, once I create these templates, I cannot figure out how to then assign these templates to certain joints. I go through the process of editing the 'USER' group under Assign -> Customize toolbar, but once I exit out of that window and go to Assign, my custom templates are never shown.

I also noticed in reference to the tutorial that I do not have the Design -> View -> Template switch either, or the entire View menu itself.

I'm not sure what I'm missing, so any help or tips would be very much appreciated!

Ask A Question I

Thu, 28 Jun 2018 17:19:20 GMT

Ask a question in a forum.

RAM Frame Pnt > Pe2x Short Column problem

Charlotte Sauer — Thu, 28 Jun 2018 17:19:19 GMT

When running the steel member code check in RAM Frame, all my beams and columns above a certain level fail with the error code Pnt > Pe2x. This happens no matter what size the beams and columns are.

I found a similar problem had been posted here about 4 years ago, with the solution being to analyze in X and Y directions separately. I did this, and unfortunately the beams and columns still fail in the Y direction (shown in the picture below). I'm not sure if there's something wrong with my model here? One potential problem could be a very short level I have defined (2 ft high) to accommodate an architectural element at part of the structure. The failures only occur above this short column level.