Revit for non-building structural engineering 1

[gharli]

Hi All,

We are going through the process of switching from 2D to 3D drafting - yes it is late, but better late than never.

Does anyone out there have specific experience in using Revit in a non-building structures environment? If so, what has your experience been using the software and would you recommend it?

The structures we typically design and detail are for large industrial clients, specifically items such as: RC Silos, concrete canals and associated hydraulic structures, heavy foundations, concrete and steel towers, water retaining structures, etc.

Revit seems to be extremely building orientated (columns, beams, slabs) and we are wondering if sticking to a "general all purpose" 3D modelling package such as SolidEdge is a better choice?

Any input, thoughts and comments are most welcome.

Many thanks,
Grant

_________________
Jones & Wagener

http://www.jaws.co.za

 

[Brad805]

Revit is basically modeling parts with simply polygons. Out of the box it will not have a lot of useful tools for your work, but you could build up your own families over time. I expect many of your elements are sloped and you have to deal with many grades. Revit is plane based (level planes) for the most part, so I am not certain it would be easy to model some of the things you are talking about.

Are you detailing the work or do you just provide general arrangements? If detailing, I think there are better packages you might want to consider. Revit has some nuances that I find problematic to make things accurate for detailing. If you are an autodesk user you might want to search thru the autodesk university site to see if others are doing the same. I would send your rep and example project and ask for a web demo.

We also use Tekla, and I know from that forum that many in North America using it to model things similar to what you are doing. That package is far more expensive, but one can create some great tools to automate things one cannot do in Revit.

 

[gharli]

Thanks for the reply and input Brad805.

Your comment on Revit being plane based is very relevant as you're entirely correct in saying that many of our structures are sloped/inclined.

In terms of detailing (reinforcing arrangements) we will most likely stick to 2D based software (Autocad + addon) as I am still under the impression that 3D reinforcing detailing software is in it's infancy?



_________________
Jones & Wagener

http://www.jaws.co.za

 

[Brad805]

3D rebar modeling is being done in Revit and other packages quite efficiently. Not all like the scheduling of rebar in Revit, so you would have to look at that. Other packages are more flexible and allow you to change the scheduling, but that has its drawbacks too. The biggest problem in Revit adding the rebar is the model gets very large and this can slow down model operations if you do not turn them on/off. That said, if you are not responsible to provide rebar quantities, it is really worth the time to add it to your model. In North America suppliers usually always do their own take offs, but I know in the UK and EU that is not always the case.

Is Solidedge a common package structural guys use in Africa? We also use Solidworks, and have been provided models from Siemens software. Those packages tend to be part based. That works great for mechanical suppliers who build the same exact parts over and over, but for structural guys it is not always the best.