Ram Concept - Export Reactions to Mat Slab

I'm modeling a building that has several stories of two way P-T slabs with a mat foundation. I've modeled/designed the P-T floors in RAM Concept and am looking to use Concept to design the mat foundation as well. Is the intended workflow to completely finish the P-T design in Concept, then export all of those floors to RAM SS? Then after bringing it into RAM SS, re-export my loads back to Concept so that I can design the mat slab there? This seems a bit of a roundabout manner of doing things but its seems like maybe the way to go. Also, if things end up changing in my P-T floors after I've done the export loop once, what is the best way to make sure my mat foundation loads get updated in Concept?

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  • That seems reasonable. Since I have all of my floors designed in Concept already, what would be the easiest way to get my reactions into a separate mat foundation Concept file?

  • If you are confident that the columns and walls align perfectly between the Concept models then approach A would work. If not, then Approach B will be far less trouble. 

    Approach A

    1. Export each Ram Concept model into a new level type in a new RAM SS model
    2. Stack the stories in the story data
    3. Load the levels in Modeler with gravity loads
    4. Model a mat on the lowest story
    5. Run the analysis (e..g Ram Frame, Ram Concrete)
    6. Import the levels back into the original Concept models, replacing columns, walls, and loads (slabs optional)
    7. Save and export reactions to RAM SS
    8. Rerun analysis in Ram Concrete
    9. Export and design mat in Concept

    Approach B

    1. Manually add up column reactions from various Concept models
    2. Model Mat in new Concept file (and soil springs)
    3. Apply point loads and design mat.



  • Thanks, Seth. I think as I have some levels with fairly custom loading, it might be better to go with Approach B (rather than having to re-input the loads in the SS model), especially as my walls may not align perfectly. 

    I'm wondering if you have any suggestions on an efficient way to add up teh column reactions from my Concept model. My current idea was to export an excel file of column reactions from each floor and tabulate in Excel. The only issue is that for each of my 4 floors, I'll have a lot of exports (SDL, ODL, LLred, LLunred, SL, etc), so this will get a bit cumbersome. Is there a better way to export all reactions for a floor, while still breaking them down by load case (so that they can be added separately to the mat slab)?

  • You could make a custom combo of all the live loads and then consolidate all the LL cases into a single reaction (we already have a combo for DL and SW), but if you really want all the reactions to remain broken out into load cases then you would have to export each table.