Welcome to the Interactive LEARN Session!

Welcome to today's Interactive LEARN Session. This is an opportunity for engineers to interact and get their technical questions answered. Bentley's structural software provides engineers with a 'workhorse' for getting through the maze of building code and material specification requirements. This requires us to have a familiarity with those codes, and today's interaction gives you an opportunity for us to share with you what we know, and at the same time help you to understand what the programs are doing. Do you have any questions about diaphragms: rigid, semirigid, flexible, what the codes require and how to model them? Or wind and seismic drift requirements?

We are also excited to announce that the latest version of the RAM Structural System, version 14.07, is scheduled to be released on Thursday, February 26. I have posted the Release Notes for that version here:

http://communities.bentley.com/products/structural/structural_analysis___design/w/structural_analysis_and_design__wiki/19602.ram-ss-v14-07-00-release-notes

If you want to know more about that version, or if you have any questions about the RAM Structural System, post your questions I will give you some answers!

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  • One typical area where our office runs into issues is determining the lateral load distribution through diaphragms. We need this piece for diagram design, attachment, etc. If it is a one story structure with only braced frames, we can take the horizontal component in each brace and work with that. But when it is a multi-story building with braced frames, moment frames, frames with horizontal or vertical offsets, shear walls, etc. it is difficult to determine what load is going into each frame/wall. How do you recommend we handle this situation? Please note that when two frames abutt in orthogonal directions, naming the frames independently is impossible due to the shared column.
  • I've wondered about the shared column issue too, and would also be interested in any best practice for those situations.
  • We often tend to think of the model as static (we don't want to keep changing it to get different results), and that the Frame Numbers are part of that static model. However, our intent for the Frame Numbering command was to allow the user to assign them on the fly so they could tailor any output to get precisely what they need to see, and not be overwhelmed with all of the other data for the other members. Note that the Assign Frame Number command is in every module in RAM Frame to enable this. We expected that engineers would use this liberally to get info from individual frames or even parts of individual frames. For example, if you wanted to compare or investigate braces you could assign all of the braces to be a particular frame number and then get a report that would then list the results for only the braces.
    In the case of the corner column the best thing to do is to assign them as part of one of the frames, get the output, and then reassign as part of the other frame and get the output again.
    We have considered somehow allowing the user to specify that a member is part of multiple Frame Numbers, but we haven't pursued that one, haven't really figured out how best to do that.

  • Personally, I give a frame a number and want it to always maintain that number. When multiple people are using the model or looking at output, it is necessary that Frame 5 always be Frame 5. The piles of output become harder to sift through 3-6 months down the road if members keep changing labels. Periodically I will relabel something for a specific output, but then reassign it to its original frame. I understand the intent, but wish determining the load into each frame at each level was more readily available.
  • Yeah, we've really used frame numbers statically also. Obviously, if the design requirements change and we have to rearrange frames, then we can't do that, but generally we haven't been using the frame numbers the way they were apparently intended either. A lot of times, we may have drawings with labels like BF1, BF2, etc, and it's nice to keep the drawings and the analytical model matched up as much as possible.
  • Good feedback, thanks. You make good points about multiple people and looking at older projects. The ideal solution would be to allow multiple assignments.
    One suggestion that Tech Support has recommend is that you assign the corner column to have a different Frame Number than either of the other two frames. For example, it could be Frame #1, and the other two frames could be Frame #2 and #3, respectively. Then you would not need to keep changing the Frame Numbers, but you would need to remember to print out and manually combine the results for Frame #1 and Frame #2, and likewise for Frame #1 and Frame #3.

  • That is an interesting idea, allowing the user to assign Frame Labels, either instead of, or in addition to, the Frame Numbers. Then the program would really need to allow the assignment of more than one Label to a given member.

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