In this video, we’ll show you how Revit 2017 and Advance Steel 2017 can work together to
provide a more seamless BIM workflow from design to fabrication.
Revit 2017 is delivered with certified families, and you can access the properties of a structural member
with the Edit Type button. One of the new enhancements in Revit 2017 is the ability to place steel connections
directly on the structural sections in your Revit model.
You can download and install the Autodesk Steel Connections from your Autodesk account. The Steel Connections for Revit provides
access to a variety of parametric steel connections, enabling connections to be modeled with a higher level
of detail. If you want to insert a steel connection in your model, just pick the different members to be connected,
then select the Connections command and a list of available steel connections will appear
in the pull-down list under Generic connection in the Properties palette. By navigating through the different options offered
in the properties dialog box, it is easy to adjust the connection by defining a different endplate
size or modifying the stiffeners quantity.
Changing the length of the haunch will immediately affect the location of the stiffeners along the beam. Here is another example with the insertion of a shear plate
between the column and the other beam. Thanks to the graphical representation within the properties dialog, it is easy to go through
many different possibilities and adjust the shear plate as required. To view the connection objects for example on Level 4 on this project,
you can change the Detail Level to Fine. If you want to copy this haunch connection multiple times,
just pick an element from the steel connection
and then use the Revit copy command by selecting the multiple option and then picking the start point and
the destination point.
If you display the model in 3D, you can see that the connection has been copied to the other portal frames. The copied connections remain
intelligent parametric connections, and you can modify them at any time with the
Modify Parameters icon. It is easy to insert a base plate at the bottom of one of the columns, make the necessary modifications
such as the base plate dimensions and the distance between anchor bolts. You can also choose among different anchor bolt providers and choose the type of
anchor shape.
Copying this base plate connection can be done easily with the Revit copy command by selecting the multiple option and then picking graphically
the destination points horizontally and vertically on a top view.
You can easily control the visibility and graphic display of model elements, such as the anchors, the bolts and the plates which have been created by the steel
connections.
You can validate
steel connections by checking compliance with American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC) or Eurocodes 3 (EC3) standards. You can take the loading conditions
directly from Robot and design the connection based on those, or in this example
we can add our own vertical loading. You can run a Check or even a Presize and
we can see that this is now passed. Let’s have a look at the report calculations based on the formulas used.
If you go to the Add-Ins ribbon, you can access the “Advance Steel Extension”, which can be downloaded & installed from the Autodesk App Store website. Here you can set up your preferred settings, and choose exporting
the Revit model and create an SMLX file. In Advance Steel, you can then import the file from Revit by pressing the Import icon.
The model with the grid is successfully imported, and the members are now intelligent objects and steel
connections are also successfully imported.
You can easily access the steel connections properties and make any changes such as the length of the haunch and the size of the column stiffeners. Advance Steel is extremely powerful in terms of making modifications and changes to any structural member’s size automatically and adjusting the connection’s size.
You can display the Advance Steel tool palette and use some automatic tools like the “Copy by template, multiple” command which help copying the clip angle connection
to different locations just in a few clicks.
You can also quickly copy some floor beams and their associated steel connections with
the dedicated Advance Steel copy tool, and you can snap to any AutoCAD snap point as Advance Steel is working on the top of AutoCAD.
Once the model is completed, it is easy to export it back to Revit. After the export file is created,
the Revit user can use the Synchronization feature to load the file
and see the differences between the Revit model and the Advance Steel model. The different colors clearly show what has
been added, modified or deleted. The Revit user has full control of these changes
and can either accept them one by one or apply all of them in one click. As a result, we get an up-to-date Revit model according to
the changes made in the Advance Steel model.
Again, you can continue adjusting or modifying your Revit model, by adding, deleting or modifying any structural member or steel connection.
Steel connection apply all the holes into the steel beam, we can just isolate this member and you
can see that the beam is physically drilled.
You can notice that the steel connection properties dialog is almost exactly the same between Revit and Advance Steel.
The structural engineer can also specify some approval status to a steel connection,
and this information can be transferred to the steel detailer when exporting the Revit model to Advance Steel.