Dynamic Reinforcement

Intelligent solution for reinforced concrete structural elements

Creation of the reinforcement drawing is an important step in designing reinforced concrete buildings, which usually involves a lot of time, patience, skills and responsibility, as the created drawings should comply with specific standards. Advance Concrete has a new reinforcement solution, easy to use in projects, so that the time spent for reinforcement drawing creation is considerably reduced.

What is dynamic reinforcement?

Dynamic reinforcement is a new concept, allowing more flexibility in designing reinforcement solutions.

The user can use and create reinforcement solutions by integrating them in their context, as well as element nodes and junctions.

The created reinforcement solutions can be used later in other projects, where the elements have different sizes. The reinforcement elements adjust to the new dimensions and are taken into account in reinforcement drawing creation and lists.

Predefined dynamic reinforcement solutions

Advance Concrete has a set of predefined dynamic reinforcement solutions allowing the reinforcement of structural elements (beams, columns, footings, slabs) and assemblies of structural elements:

Cantilever beams
Columns (stirrups and pin bars)
Door and window openings
Wall between two columns
Plain wall between walls

Flexibility in defining new dynamic reinforcement solutions

Complex structural elements like columns with corbels, ribbed slabs, wall openings and assemblies of structural elements are just a few examples of situations that often come up in projects for which there is no predefined reinforcement solution.

The user creates a reinforcement drawing, which integrates geometric information, local rules and standards for the steel grade, reinforcement placement, concrete covers, overlaps, and anchor lengths.

Advance Concrete provides all the necessary tools:

A user friendly environment for reinforcement solution design which allows the creation of a reinforcement drawing with all the necessary views: cuts, elevation, isometric views;
Various tools for the creation of all reinforcement elements necessary for the reinforcement cage: straight and polygonal bars, U and L bars, stirrup and pin bars, meshes and distributions;
A wizard for saving the dynamic reinforcement solution that provides the option to integrate all conditions and parameters necessary for the reinforcement cage to adapt to the new dimensions in the model.

For the elements junctions and prefabricated elements, the software recognises the situations for which the dynamic reinforcement solution can be applied. The reinforcement cage is placed correctly as it considers the position of the structural elements in the context.

Perpendicularity, intersections	Parallelism	Alignment
Two perpendicular walls	Column aligned with a wall	Wall between 2 parallel walls

The Dynamic Reinforcement allows the reinforcement of elements with certain properties or complying with some geometric conditions:

Thickness smaller than a given value; for example, walls thinner than 20cm.The number of bars is modified according to the wall thickness;
A relation between the element dimensions (e.g. deep beams: Length / SectionHeight < 3, broad beams: Section Length / Section Width < 0.33);
Structural elements of the same type and material.

Formulae for automatic calculation of the distances and bar parameters can be defined.

Using Dynamic Reinforcement, the elements of a reinforcement drawing can be saved and then applied in the project after modifying the defined parameters. The reinforcement adapts to the formwork contours and the reinforcement drawing can be automatically created with all bars, meshes, and all annotations.

Easy to use

Defining a new reinforcement solution involves the following steps:

1. Automatic creation of a drawing
    Automatic creation of a drawing starting from a set of structural elements. The drawing contains predefined views:

    Cuts
    Elevations
    Isometric views
    Top / bottom views

According to the elements geometry, sketch points are created. The reinforcement elements are placed using these points. New sketch points can be added if necessary. For example, the user-defined points can determine the direction in which the straight bars will be extended.

2. Adding reinforcement elements
    Next, the reinforcement elements are added, using the Advance Concrete tools. The bars and meshes are placed     using both, user-defined and default sketch points.

3. Saving the reinforcement solution
    The reinforcement solution is saved in an interactive mode. The user defines all parameters necessary to adapt to     specific situations in the project:

    Steel grade
    Bar diameter
    Concrete cover
    Anchor length, hook type
    Bar spacing (for distributions).

In addition, other parameters and relations between them can be defined in order to allow bars to automatically fit the new dimensions in the model.

To illustrate the reinforcement design workflow using Dynamic Reinforcement, GRAITEC provides a multimedia tutorial which presents an example often found in designing reinforced concrete buildings: a beam supported by columns with a square section. The solution can then be applied to any beam supported by columns with square sections, regardless of the beam length.

Online tutorial on dynamic reinforcement

Reusing the reinforcement solutions

The reinforcement solutions are saved in a file for later use in other projects. Both, existing and user-defined solutions can be used to reinforce elements integrated in their context, matching the defined conditions.

All reinforcements put in place using the "Dynamic Reinforcement" automatically adapt to formwork contours and can be taken into account in reinforcement drawing creation and lists.

The dynamic reinforcement solution considers the openings in the structural elements. For example, the bar distributions in walls or in slabs automatically consider the openings.

3D View

Based on the reinforcement representation in the views of the reinforcement drawing, Advance Concrete recreates the cage and displays it in 3D. It also detects collisions.

Benefits

  The dynamic reinforcement solutions can be easily used in projects, so that the time spent for reinforcement drawings creation is considerably reduced. Common tasks, frequently encountered during the project development are simplified and reduced to simple parameter value input.
  Once defined and saved, the dynamic reinforcement solutions can be applied in other projects; this minimises the risk of errors and guarantees compliance with design rules and standards.
  The drawings are kept up-to-date when projects are modified, and the risk of errors is considerably reduced.