Josh,
Great to see something firm from Bentley Systems with regards improved reinforcement import/export between RAM Concept and Revit. My responses to your two main questions are as follows:
1) At our company, we currently use RAM Concept a lot for temporary loading scenarios on existing concrete floors during demolition works on jobs where we have sufficient structural documentation showing the existing floor plate reinforcement. Given that Revit is a modelling tool as opposed to an analysis tool, it will in my opinion at least always be better equipped to model reinforcement (existing or new) than RAM Concept is (not that RAM Concept's drafting tools are too bad compared to the competing products). Additionally, I am hoping to take advantage of Revit's phasing tools to model slabs under equipment loading in various stages of demolition as building surveyors seems to be getting fussier with issuing permits on demolition jobs and are looking for computations to back up each stage of the demolition process. My theory therefore is if we can model the demolition sequence in Revit, we can export the floor to RAM Concept in various stages of demolition and check it for temporary loading scenarios.
With regards new floors, I have found that much of finer aspects of reinforcement detailing are dictated by considerations other than structural design requirements such as bar splice joint locations, closer bars, slab steps, openings, spacing and so forth. I therefore frequently find that in RAM Concept that it is easier to draw out a generic bar arrangement (e.g. N12-150 throughout) that satisfies these detailing conditions and then allow RAM Concept to check what I have drawn and then increase bar sizes as necessary to get a design that works. I find that program generated reinforcement while it works structurally and is a very good tool for preliminary design to find out if a given slab thickness works or not for a given design situation and providing reinforcement rates for tender documentation, I find it generally is not very construction friendly and use little if any of it on the final design, particularly on geometrically complex slabs. Furthermore, similar to the staged demolition process outlined above, we reckon that we can improve our the temporary works design services during construction by modelling in Revit the floor construction stages and export the floor to RAM Concept in various stages of construction to check it for temporary loading scenarios (e.g. backpropping for upper floors, early formwork removal, equipment loading, stored construction materials loading).
Therefore, I would like bi-directional support as I would use both almost equally.
2) I agree with Trent's comment above that worst case, this is a minor inconvenience and best case, a safety tool to stop inexperienced or careless engineers from exporting program generated reinforcement without thoroughly reviewing what the program has done before documenting it for construction. No reinforcement shown on a drawing will be picked up by someone before it even leaves the office. Incorrect or unbuildable reinforcement is much less likely to be picked up.
Great to see something firm from Bentley Systems with regards improved reinforcement import/export between RAM Concept and Revit. My responses to your two main questions are as follows:
1) At our company, we currently use RAM Concept a lot for temporary loading scenarios on existing concrete floors during demolition works on jobs where we have sufficient structural documentation showing the existing floor plate reinforcement. Given that Revit is a modelling tool as opposed to an analysis tool, it will in my opinion at least always be better equipped to model reinforcement (existing or new) than RAM Concept is (not that RAM Concept's drafting tools are too bad compared to the competing products). Additionally, I am hoping to take advantage of Revit's phasing tools to model slabs under equipment loading in various stages of demolition as building surveyors seems to be getting fussier with issuing permits on demolition jobs and are looking for computations to back up each stage of the demolition process. My theory therefore is if we can model the demolition sequence in Revit, we can export the floor to RAM Concept in various stages of demolition and check it for temporary loading scenarios.
With regards new floors, I have found that much of finer aspects of reinforcement detailing are dictated by considerations other than structural design requirements such as bar splice joint locations, closer bars, slab steps, openings, spacing and so forth. I therefore frequently find that in RAM Concept that it is easier to draw out a generic bar arrangement (e.g. N12-150 throughout) that satisfies these detailing conditions and then allow RAM Concept to check what I have drawn and then increase bar sizes as necessary to get a design that works. I find that program generated reinforcement while it works structurally and is a very good tool for preliminary design to find out if a given slab thickness works or not for a given design situation and providing reinforcement rates for tender documentation, I find it generally is not very construction friendly and use little if any of it on the final design, particularly on geometrically complex slabs. Furthermore, similar to the staged demolition process outlined above, we reckon that we can improve our the temporary works design services during construction by modelling in Revit the floor construction stages and export the floor to RAM Concept in various stages of construction to check it for temporary loading scenarios (e.g. backpropping for upper floors, early formwork removal, equipment loading, stored construction materials loading).
Therefore, I would like bi-directional support as I would use both almost equally.
2) I agree with Trent's comment above that worst case, this is a minor inconvenience and best case, a safety tool to stop inexperienced or careless engineers from exporting program generated reinforcement without thoroughly reviewing what the program has done before documenting it for construction. No reinforcement shown on a drawing will be picked up by someone before it even leaves the office. Incorrect or unbuildable reinforcement is much less likely to be picked up.