I am designing a PT parking garage that starts in structural system and uses concept to design the floor plates. I have ramps created as intermediate levels that make the column lengths in concept too short which affects the stiffness and hyperstatic reactions.
I adjust the column height manually in concept but this get overridden on remeshing. what should I do to fix this issue? Do I need to save the concept model generated by structural systems separately, delete it from the working directory, and export results to structural systems to 'lock' the geometry?
Make sure you are adjusting the column height on the mesh input - standard plan (not the element layer) to prevent modifications when the Concept model is remeshed. To prevent modifications from reimporting the RAM SS model again, turn off the option to re-import the columns (or just don't reimport the RAM SS model again.).
See also: https://communities.bentley.com/products/ram-staad/w/structural_analysis_and_design__wiki/7381/unlinking-ram-concept-files-from-ram-ss
Thanks, that was exactly what I was doing.
Is there any way that for future links ram concept can be made to look for the next slab level to determine the height to use for the column rather than story data?
Have you evaluated how much of a difference column height even makes? I suppose we could look to the column unbraced length to establish the default height. I'll enter that request. For ramp models like you have, we clearly have other modeling needs that could make it unnecessary.