Engineers who use ETABS® for their structural analysis can quickly code check and design all reinforced concrete elements using Altair® S-CONCRETE Multistory Designer capabilities.
The Multistory Designer facilitates communication between an ETABS® model’s data and S-CONCRETE, allowing users to design reinforced concrete columns, beams and walls efficiently. Users can run interactive design and code checks on all concrete structural elements within the imported ETABS® model to generate a single, comprehensive concrete design report. Note that Multistory Designer is available in the Advanced Structural Engineer Suite. The Multistory Designer supports ETABS® columns, beams, and braces, as well as piers and spandrels. Users can also import floor/story labeling systems from ETABS® to help define design groups and load combination data from the ETABS® Analysis Forces.
To use S-CONCRETE Enterprise Multistore Designer, you first need to export your ETABS®
model and analysis results to a Microsoft Access Database file. This procedure requires Microsoft Access
2010 or greater to be installed on the computer running ETABS®. The detailed steps to perform
the Export are described here.
A high-level explanation of the workflow is described below:
ETABS® Export - Export ETABS® model to Microsoft Access Database file.
Geometry and Load Setup - From the S-CONCRETE application (in the main menu), and go to
Run > S-CONCRETE Multistory Designer. The Import Options window will open, as shown:
Users can point to the MDB file they would like to import, and control various import parameters. This step dictates the geometry, and force information that will be imported from the ETABS® model into S-CONCRETE’s Multistory Designer.
Preliminary Design Data - After clicking the ‘Next’ button in the above graphic, you are brought to a screen where you can specify the Design Code, Bar Type, initial reinforcement percentages, rebar material properties and concrete cover to be used in the preliminary evaluation of the members.
Once you enter your information for each section type, you can apply them to all objects in the model.
Review Preliminary Design Results - The next stage in the workflow is to review the preliminary design results. At this point, Multistory Designer has calculated the initial reinforcement for all sections, determined the
maximum forces from the user’s selected Load Combinations and performed some preliminary capacity checks and reported DCR’s (Demand Capacity Ratios). User’s can modify design groups (for example, make groups of sections that might occur in a range of stories), and also adjust the reinforcement through the relevant forms, or by launching S-CONCRETE directly.
For more precise adjustments to a concrete design group, we would recommend using the ‘Form View’ (in the case of the image above it is accessed through the ‘Column Form’ button). The form view can be thought of as a mini-S-CONCRETE accessible through the Multistory Designer, that also allows you to directly launch S-CONCRETE, if desired.
Batch Processing - After the preliminary reinforcement is defined, and potentially modified in the earlier steps, based on the preliminary design checks, you can then generate all the SCO files in your structure, and run them through the S-CONCRETE Batch Utility to perform a rigorous code check to evaluate all sections against each load combination.
The process starts with users selecting which sections will be generated, and which load combinations will be evaluated. The user can then create all of the SCO files for each section automatically with the relevant data automatically. You can then perform a batch code check, which will check each and every concrete section in your structure against all selected load combinations in a single run.
Engineering Design Reports - After the batch process is complete, S-CONCRETE will allow you to generate a consolidated design report containing detailed design information for each section in your model. Users can also export PDF schedules, export to excel, and more. It is also worth noting that since all SCO files are exported, and managed throughout this operation, users can open up any individual file in S-CONCRETE’s Standalone application and work on that file within the standard S-CONCRETE interface.
If you are interested in more information on the S-CONCRETE Multistory Designer, please visit the Altair Community Documentation page, and review the detailed Reference Guide.
You can also find more information on the Altair How to YouTube Channel.