When passing a wall modeled and analyzed in RAM Elements to the masonry wall design module, what is the best or proper way to:
Adjusting to an effective thickness in RAM Elements would be a way to cover both the self weight and stiffness, but then the actual block thickness in the masonry module is affected as well, and can't be adjusted?
Adjusting either the unit weight or the self-weight factor works to correct the self-weight and maintains the desired block size when passing to the masonry module, but, would not have any effect on stiffness?
Appreciate any help or insight.
The following link for Masonry FAQ answers your question regarding the self-weight for partially-grouted walls. Please see the title " How does partial grouting affect the masonry wall design?".
https://communities.bentley.com/products/ram-staad/w/structural_analysis_and_design__wiki/3154/ram-elements-masonry-wall-faq
For your reduced stiffness question, you can either create a custom masonry material with an adjusted elastic modulus, E, in the main RAM Elements or you can calculate an equivalent thickness.
Since it appears that RE takes the self weight of the wall to be that of a fully grouted wall, my thought would be to create custom materials with adjusted material densities for partially grouted cores (all other material properties remaining constant) such that even though the program considers fully grouted cores, the weight of the wall is still that of the partially grouted wall. However in doing so, I am not familiar enough with the inner workings of RE as to know if this affects other properties as computed in RE.
Self-weight is adjusted for partial grouting in the masonry wall module. See: communities.bentley.com/.../ram-elements-masonry-wall-faq
Does that self weight adjustment transfer out of the module if running it from within RAM Elements (i.e. affect the reactions at shell nodes)?
No, you need to make some special materials for accurate self-weight analysis in the main program. See: communities.bentley.com/.../creating-custom-sections-materials-etc-in-ram-elements-tn