Was curious if it was possible to utilize the shell interfaces to more accurately model wood bearing walls in RAM Elements. Basically I'm hoping to do the following for a complicated high end residence but have never had good luck in the past.
We've got wood bearing walls at the level above that do not stack on the level below. As such, we'll be placing transfer beams below those bearing walls to transfer that load out at the main floor. If I model the bearing walls above as shells, they do not act as intended when interfacing with the beams below (this is not surprising). The stiffness of those shells spans along its length rather than transferring the load vertically down to the beam as would be the case in true wood construction. Again, not surprising as we're modeling this as a stiff shell in an FEM program. My question is - is there any way that we can use Elements to do this, possibly with the interfaces? My hope is that loads are applied to those shells and the shell would simply transfer that compression vertically down to the member below it, loading it up there.
Let me know what you think.