Tool Name: Speed Brace!
Intended users
My tool is intended to assist structural engineers with modeling, locating, and designing Buckling Restrained Brace Frame lateral systems on a rectangular building.
Need you’re trying to provide a solution or support for
As a part of the AEC Global Teamwork course, while playing the role of a structural engineer, I experienced the process of choosing locations and angle orientations for braces to balance the load. After choosing the locations, the story shears were divided to each brace and a core area for the brace was calculated to withstand the load in Excel. Then this brace needed to be modeled in Revit which was tricky due to differing floor heights, brace sizes and orientations. To speed up this process, I hope to create a configurator and design tool that calculates the base shear using the gravity framing, determines the load distribution to each brace, calculates the brace areas, and models the braces with the determined size. Evaluators include minimizing the number of braces while maximizing the free area on the wall surface.
Underlying logic of the model you’ll implement
This tool will build off of the existing structural framing tool and develop optimal locations for the braces given the gravity system. Starting with a rectangular mass form and the input bay sizes and floor heights, the tool will model the gravity system. The users will also input the number of brace frames they want on each wall. A slider will also be provided so users can move around the braces on the walls to different bays and another slider to adjust which way the braces are angled. The tool will calculate the base shear from weight of the building, distribute the forces to the braces, calculate the area that the brace needs to the have and model the brace accordingly.
Evaluators would be the material cost of the braces (minimize) and the amount of wall that the braces are covering (minimize).
Inputs:
Rectangular Mass Form
X-Direction Bay Size
Y-Direction Bay Size
First Floor Height
Remaining Floor Heights
Number of Brace Frames on Wall 1 (X Direction)
Slider to Adjust locations of braces
Slider to adjust brace angle
Number of Brace Frames on Wall 2 (X Direction)
Slider to Adjust locations of braces
slider to adjust brace angle
Number of Brace Frames on Wall 3 (Y Direction)
Slider to Adjust locations of braces
slider to adjust brace angle
Number of Brace Frames on Wall 4 (Y Direction)
Slider to Adjust locations of braces
slider to adjust brace angle
Outputs
Revit model of gravity and lateral system designs
Cost of Lateral System
% Of Wall Area Being Covered Up