AUTOMATED DESIGN OF CONCRETE BUILDINGS

AUTOMATED MEMBER DESIGN

The backbone of the AMECO automated design process is the built-in design decision routines, which were developed from years of experience in engineering design and construction practice. Thus the engineer can obtain economical and practical design solutions without even entering any design criteria. At any time the engineer can easily modify these decision routines to suit his own requirements.

For each member, critical load combinations are formed for dead and live loads, vehicle, wind and seismic forces, static or dynamic. All combinations include second order effects and construction simulation effects.

A typical concrete member is redesigned 50 to 100 times and for each member size investigated, different rebar sizes/arrangements are studied. Any change in member sizes restarts the structural analysis.

Detailed material takeoff and construction costs are computed for all concrete members, based on AMECO current (or user input) unit prices for concrete, reinforcing steel, formwork and floor finish.

Beams, Flat plates and Slabs, Two-way Systems, Waffle and Joist slabs, Voided slabs

• Generates moment and shear envelopes
• Locates critical sections in member for moments and shears
• Designs flexural steel arrangements to satisfy moment envelopes: selects bar sizes, bar types, number of layers
• Designs stirrup arrangements to satisfy shear envelopes: selects bar sizes, bar types and spacing
• Computes moment transfer shear effects for two-way slabs over columns
• Distributes two-way slab moments to column, to middle strips & stiffening beams
• Computes short and long term deflections
• Computes reinforcing bar lengths and bar cut-off points

Shear Walls with Pilasters

• Designs walls for vertical and lateral forces, moments
• Selects horizontal and vertical reinforcing bars for shear
• Selects reinforcing bars for flexure and axial load

Columns with Capitals and Drop panels

• Designs columns for biaxial bending
• Selects vertical steel arrangements, number of bars, size of bars
• Selects arrangement of ties and spirals, bar sizes and spacing