Jon Ara's Activities

RAM Concept - Designing Band Beams / Drop Beams

Jon Ara — Wed, 13 Apr 2022 12:58:08 GMT

Hello,

I am currently working on a concrete podium slab. As most of the load will be along the column strip I am looking to thicken the slab over the columns in the left-right direction using band beams (see photos below). The slab will be 9in thick and the dropped areas will be 18in deep (9+9). Currently I have the band beam modelled as a thickened two-way slab and have the adjacent slab modelled as two-way as well.

I am hoping to have the bottom rebar at the bottom of the band beam to take advantage of the extra 9in depth (left to right direction). Is there any settings I can adjust in the software to ensure it will account for the additional depth. Also, should the columns strip widths, cross section trimming or design system be adjusted any differently than a typical flat plat slab?

Any help is appreciated. Thank you,

John

Ram Concrete Walls - Coupling Beams

Jon Ara — Tue, 12 Apr 2022 15:20:32 GMT

Hello,

I am currently working on a concrete building with the lateral load resisting system being composed of coupled shear walls. I have been using RAM SS Concrete to design the rebar so far. There are doorway openings in some of the walls and I will need to add couplings beams above the openings. I have done this before with RAM, however, the software will not let me add coupling beams this time around.

If anyone has any insight to why this is happening or how I can fix the issue that would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

John

Wall Fixity - Ram Concept Elevated Slab Design

Jon Ara — Tue, 15 Mar 2022 13:10:30 GMT

Hi All,

I am designing an elevated concrete podium slab which will carry 4 floors of timber above. The perimeter of the slab is supported by 4 basement walls and the distance between columns is about 24ft top to bottom and 18ft left to right. I attached a photo below of the setup.

I am unsure if I should be setting the walls as fixed (far/near) or unchecked (pinned). I have run both cases and the load history deflections are completely different. I understand there will be some wall fixity as the wall dowels are bent into the slab, however, the deflection differences are large so I would like to hear other opinions.

Thanks,

John

Ram Frame - Unstable Structure Detected

Jon Ara — Fri, 17 Sep 2021 18:33:19 GMT

I am working on a 10 story concrete building with multiple slab thicknesses on each level (8"to10"). After meshing I receive a very distorted shell element found on diaphragm at one or more levels error. The software then runs the analysis but it cancels upon receiving an "unstable structure detected" error message.

How can I resolve this issue?

Thanks,

Jon

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Thu, 16 Sep 2021 02:17:29 GMT

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RAM Concept Reinforcement Maximum Spacing

Jon Ara — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 12:57:47 GMT

Hi All,

I have been using Ram Concept lately to design two way slabs but I can't seem to figure out how to change the program spacing limits. For example the software usually limits maximum spacing to 18" for an 8" slab however our firm always limits maximum spacing to 16" o/c. I am using CSA A23.3-04 design code btw.

Is it possible to have the software limit the spacing for me?

Thanks,

John