Yushun Zou

Journal Entry For
Module 9 - Make Your Pitch
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Link to Student

Share a brief overview of your proposed tool or solution (1 page max) that outlines the essentials of your plan. It should include:

Intended users

The intended users can be structural engineers or construction managers who responsible for cost estimation based on provided structural design.

Need you’re trying to provide a solution or support for

For some projects, the owner may have strict limit for the budget of structural system or the total cost. A cost estimation tool for structural system can help structural engineer understand the trade off between component choice and cost. From perspective of construction manager, it can help with the cost estimation of the structural system without designs provided by structural engineer.

Inputs

Design Variable:

  1. Bay size of the structure in X and Y direction
  2. Story height
  3. Element size for columns and beams
  4. Strength of material used for structural components

Constant Input:

  1. Dimensions of building used for estimation
  2. Cost of structural per unit weight
  3. Factor for different strength of structural material

Underlying logic of the model you’ll implement

Firstly, the design assistant will create a according structure based on inputs which function similar to the example shown by Glenn. Next, the function will calculate the element weight based on element size and according length. Finally, it will calculate the final cost of the structural system based on element weight and element strength.

Final Cost = element weight * cost of structural per unit weight * Factor for strength of material.

For the weight, there are weight already calculated for each structural elements in Revit. The only step I need to take is to extract all weight of structural element and sum them up. For cost of structural per unit weight, I can use a code block for users to customize local cost for structural components. For factor of strength, I want to imply the ratio of used material strength / standard material strength (like 4000 psi for concrete and 60 ksi for steel).

Outputs

The final output of the function is the total cost and total weight of the structural system.