How does RAM Concrete Beam determine the splice length to use when lapping two different sizes of rebar? I have top bars that are #8s for the end thirds of the beam and they transition to #4 top bars in the middle of the span. My splice type is set to Class A in the Detailing Defaults dialogue box. How can I determine the actual length of the splice the program is assuming, since a Class A splice would be different for each rebar size?
See the program manual section "5.2.6 Bar Splices" in general. It does not address the varying bar size problem, but I believe the program adds a half development length to each bar set (in each direction) taken from the input length of the bars. Each Ld/2 term is based on the bar size used. I did a spot check using the material take-off report in a sample file and confirmed the values.