Carrie Tam

The intended users for FunicularFINDR are both architects and engineers. Oftentimes, there is a disconnect between architecture and engineering and in practice, an architect will design a parametric structure and hand off the design to a structural engineer who will evaluate feasibility. FunicularFINDR will be a program that any discipline can use; it will design a rectangular shell structure based on the applied point loads on the structure.

Inputs for the structure will include number of discretizations when solving for moment distributions, the number of discretizations of the resulting surface, and the loading. Loading types will include: (1) point loads, (2) line loads in the x-direction, (3) line loads in the y-direction, and (4) area loads. For ease of coding, the loads must be applied to a discretization point that does not lie on the boundary of the structural surface.

The program will take the UV grid and calculate the moments on the shell structure using force magnitude and application location information from each type of loading. The program will then assume superposition can be used and sum all the moment distributions from the structures to calculate and assign z-values to each of the corresponding points. From there, the surface will be discretized into panels which can be outputted into Revit.

The structure will output panels in Revit that can be used for a variety of functions. These panels will be in a form that reflects the moment diagrams for the given loading to mimic a funicular shell structure. As an example, a designer may be able to determine the optimum wall length to be used as a support for a shell roof structure so to minimize the area (and therefore, the material) of the roof structure.