Deep Beam Design and Analysis Program

[nathan7]

Hi All

can someone recommend a good software for the design of deep beam walls, pile caps, corbel etc...

Thanks

 

[ChrispyBacon]

I have found CSC software to be quite effective. This would apply to their Orion package, which is a full featured concrete package.

 

[nathan7]

Any other suggestion?

 

[KootK]

I've long felt that the next great software frontier is strut & tie. Some academics have attempted it (Link) but nothing really seems to stick. While it seems that software can be made relatively easily to deal with very specific situations, making a general strut and tie package appears to be pretty darn tough.

The greatest trick that bond stress ever pulled was convincing the world it didn't exist.

 

[jayrod12]

KootK,

I believe that would be due to the subjectivity of strut-and-tie modelling. Although there are generally accepted rules for setting it up everyone can look at a problem slightly differently. The size and orientation of your struts and ties can be played with to suit each specific situation.

But then again, I could just be talking out of my ass.

 

[KootK]

I'm sure that you're exactly right Jayrod. That's really why I'd like to see it take a general approach as opposed to solving specific problems. I imagine a future where you can just reshape nodes and widen bottle struts by dragging them with your mouse. All of the tedious checks would just update themselves gloriously to suit. Then S&T design would be fun. Particularly so be cause you don't need to find the "right", most efficient answer. You just need to find an answer that pays some modicum of homage to stiffness in the load path.

I love the elegance of S&T but it's just too... damn... slow for production engineering. OP mentioned pile caps. Unless it's a twosie or you've got a spreadsheet set up, get ready to lose yourself an entire afternoon on that. Forget the mouse. What I want is a virtual reality simulator where I can walk around my STM model in three dimensions and reshape things to my will using my hands (and special gloves). I'm afraid that Tron has promised me a future that just isn't panning out.

The greatest trick that bond stress ever pulled was convincing the world it didn't exist.

 

[nathan7]

Kootk/Jayrod12

Agree with you. I work in Australia and the AU code is a joke in regard to strut and tie. I'm using the ACI code as it is more advanced.

I used Cast before and it seems an OK software, the problem is that it's base on a very old version of the ACI code, those guys should have continue developing the software..

 

[rapt]

Nathan980,

Interesting comments. It is easy to make throwaway comments like this without backing it up with any reasoning. The AS3600 committee is always happy to receive constructive comments from people using the code!

ACI's S&T is not more advanced. It may have some simplifications compared to the AS3600 method, but that is not necessarily a good thing, especially if the simplifications may be unconservative (e.g. splitting of the strut).

AS3600's S&T is as advanced as any other major design code, but has tended to follow European practice in some areas instead of ACI's as this was considered to be better practice.

 

[nathan7]

Hi Rapt,

I'm sorry if I was disrespectful and i did not mean to offend anyone, however I found the AS 3600-2009 not a very comprehensive code for the following reasons:

- No mention on hot to resolve tangential shear stresses on the node. We need to refer to Stephen Foster presentation to have clarification on this
- In the ACI the development of the tension tie start when the tie meet the concrete strut which make sense because in that region the concrete is in compression as such the tie is confined. Developing the tie before the node allow to have less congestion where the node is.
- Code does not cover confinement of the node if the node is overstressed. What do we do to confine the node? Follow the recommendations for columns?
- Bursting of struts for pilecaps? Do we need bursting reo or not? I went to a conference and the lecture mentioned that bursting reo is not required for pile caps, however the core doesn't talk about this.

What i meant is that there are a lot of area that are not covered in AS3600. It would be good to have some clarifications.

Thanks

 

[Trenno]

Forenote: I have had very little to do with STM...

But I found it interesting when one of the most renowned structural researchers made a comment in a seminar this year along the lines of, "Sorry to everyone who uses AS3600, but concrete just simply does not bottle like that..."

Can anyone point me to material that explains why it doesn't or may not in certain situations?

 

[IDS]

Nathan - your comments have the potential to form the basis of a worthwhile discussion, but they are off topic.

Could I suggest starting a new thread. The AS/NZ Code Issues section would seem appropriate.

Doug Jenkins
Interactive Design Services

http://newtonexcelbach.wordpress.com/

 

[KootK]

Sorry to everyone who uses AS3600, but concrete just simply does not bottle like that..

!!@#$@$@!! I've got too much time invested in STM design. If we're going to ditch it, I'm going to learn to cut hair. Somehow, hairstyles change at a slower pace than design codes despite nothing really having changed since Newton.

The greatest trick that bond stress ever pulled was convincing the world it didn't exist.

 

[rapt]

I have answered in a new thread in AS/NZ Code issues