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Advance Design

Advance Design 2011 is fully part of the GRAITEC BIM solution, named GRAITEC Advance and consisting of Advance Steel, Advance Concrete and Advance Design.

This new integrated 2011 suite has several common new features:

• A common installation kit for all modules, delivered on one single DVD
• New Graitec Advance Manager
• Sections libraries shared between Advance Steel and Advance Design
• Improved integration CAD / Design.

Graitec Advance is the 1st complete solution on the market which includes Design and Multi-material CAD in the same package.

Advance Design 2011 also has important improvements in several areas:

• Performance.
• Eurocode implementation.
• Finite element capabilities.
• Post-processing tools.
• Reports.

Advance Design 2011 is the invaluable tool for all your projects.

What is New in Advance Design

Software optimization

New rendering engine

A new rendering engine has been implemented with several benefits for the user:

• Independent rendering engine that can run either on OpenGL, on DirectX or other platforms.
• Speed improvement to visualize and rotate around 3D rendered model: 3-4 times faster.
• Optimization on annotations and symbols display.

Climatic generator

Wind forces on sheds

The EC1 climatic generator is able to deal with multiple roofs.
Wind forces are generated according to Clause 7.2.7 from EN 1991-1-4.

New combination engine

Advance Design 2011 has a totally new combination engine compliant with the Eurocode. It allows a complete management of load cases concomitance before generating a full set of combinations according to the Eurocode.

Concomitance table

In each cell of the table, the user has the option to set 3 different values:
“ 0” means that the two entries must never be combined together.
“ 1” means that the two entries can be combined together or separately.
“ 2” means that the two entries must be combined together.

Rules definition

It can be seen that it can take some time to fill the full matrix. To save time, the user can define parametric rules that will initialize the concomitance table.
These rules can be defined between load cases and between families. The dialog box is available from the concomitance matrix:

Concrete Design

Fire verification: EN1992-1-2

Advance Design 2011 is able to perform the fire verification according to the method described in Section 5 of EN1992-1-2 (simplified method). To handle this verification, the user has to set the required fire resistance in the “Assumptions > Reinforced Concrete Design > Calculation assumptions” dialog box:

Steel Design

Fire design

Advance Design 2011, in addition to the fire design on concrete objects, is also able to verify the fire resistance of steel members.
The verification is done according to §4.2 (simplified method) of EN1993-1-2.
The software will compare forces given by frequent combinations to the maximum force the element can handle for a given temperature.

To calculate this maximum force, Advance Design 2011 takes into account the following clauses from EN1993-1-2:
§4.2.2 for section classification
Table 3.1 for steel temperature and corresponding coefficients

§4.2.3 for maximum force for:

• Traction / compression
• Bending
• Combined oblique bending

ADVANCE Design also returns the critical temperature as defined in §4.2.4.
Users simply have to set:

• Exposure time
  
• Number of exposure faces
  

After the calculation, work ratios given by the fire verification are displayed on a specific tab on the shape sheet.

Solver - Analysis

Solver optimizations

Advance Design 2011 provides a thread safe, multi-core and multi-threading finite element engine. 

This optimization considerably reduces the calculation time, especially for big models with thousands of load cases and combinations.

A few numbers of the optimization’s result:

• 32% faster for the meshing step.
• Up to 15 times faster for the complete calculation sequence.
• 30% faster saving results to disk.

For this model, the full calculation sequence takes 13 hours with Advance Design 2010 and only 52 min with Advance Design 2011:

Boundary conditions on planar elements

For a 3D model on which the slabs and walls are modeled with planar elements, it is interesting to be able to define specific boundary conditions on these elements, which are useful to define, for example, a slab articulated over the supporting walls.

Advance Design 2011 provides the option to define these conditions directly in the property list of each element:

• Either, the user defines a “Fixed” or “Hinge” condition on the edges of the element.
• Or, the user defines different conditions on each edge of the element.

After the calculation sequence, the two elements are linked with master-slave nodes connections directly created on the analysis model:

Link between linear and planar elements

When modeling a structure with finite element analysis, the user has to pay attention to the connections between linear and planar elements in the same planes.

Example:

Consider the case of a lintel modeled with a linear element linked with a wall modeled as a planar element.

The bending moment of the lintel creates a moment in the plane of the shell modeling the wall (Mzz), using the 6th degree of freedom of the shell. In the theoretical point of view, this plane rotation DOF of the
shell is obtained by a combination of membrane effects. To have good results, the lintel should be extended over one mesh of the planar element. In the previous releases of Advance Design, this extension had to be manually
modeled by the user => It was time consuming.

With Advance Design 2011, an option in the property list of linear elements allows the user to activate a function that will do it automatically:

This new feature has the following benefits:

• The descriptive model is not affected by the FEM modeling option.
• The extension is automatically done during the meshing step => enormous time saving for the user.

Cracked inertias

A new entry in the property list of linear and planar elements allows the user to take into account the cracked inertias in the finite element calculation.

Considering the term EI in the stiffness matrix, this factor is multiplying the “E” value for the corresponding element.

This function is very useful and easy to apply. Some codes (i.e. EC8) impose these coefficients for different elements (beams, columns, slabs, etc.) to take into account cracked inertias in the global analysis.

Post-processing

Peak smoothing options for graphical result post-processing

When doing a finite element calculation, it is sometimes difficult to consolidate the results; for example when calculating a flat slab (slab directly supported by punctual supports\columns).

To make this result analysis simpler, Advance Design 2011 provides the option to activate over columns and\or punctual supports an automatic peak smoothing.

The peak smoothing parameters are available in the “Options - Application” dialog box, on the Results tab:

The peak smoothing zones are created during the meshing step:

 

The peak smoothing zone is managed with master-slave connections between the center of the support and the edges of the smoothing zone:

Reports

Storey drift verification for seismical analysis

The EC8 or other seismical codes have drift verification between each level of a building designed in a seismical area.

Advance Design 2011 provides a new feature to handle automatically this verification by generating a table with the verification per level:

To do this verification, Advance Design considers the maximum displacements for each level. Some modeling conditions must be met in order to be able to use this functionality:

• In the system’ s properties, the user must activate the “ Level” option:
  
• The user must also assign a number to the level which will be reused in the report:
  
• Then, the corresponding table can be generated through the report generator:
  

Connection design

The new Advance Design Steel Connection module provides the option to design all kinds of joints:

• Clip angles
• Clip angles skewed
• Haunches
• Gusset with 1, 2 or 3 diagonals
• Moment end plates
• Endplates on one side
• Base plates
• Apex haunches

Users will first define connected elements:

Then, they will define load cases:

Combinations will automatically be generated according to Eurocode 0.

Users will then define bolts (spacing and diameter), stiffeners and plate thickness.

The connection model will automatically be updated and the joint design dialog box returns warnings and errors, if any.

 

Advance Design Steel Connection will produce a calculation report and a detail node showing the connection.

 

Other features

Fast and easy modeling

• Display mode of elements as "linear contour", "hidden faces" or "realistic rendering"
• Elements snap points enable different actions: stretch, trim or extend, copy, move, etc.
• Use of multiple viewports enable simultaneous work in several viewpoints and visualization modes
• Ability to input elements in a 2D workplane or in a user defined coordinate system (Cartesian or polar)
• Level concept: input a column using a single click, a wall using two

 

 

Competitive meshing and Finite Element Analysis (FEA)

• Wide range of linear element types: pre-stressed cables, ties, gaps, etc.
• Advanced meshing engine: "grid" or Delaunay mesh algorithm, finite elements with 3, 4, 6 or 9 nodes, progressive meshing, refinement tools, global mesh parameters
• Static, dynamic, non-linear analyses, large displacements, generalized buckling, etc.
• Extended solver capabilities due to enhanced memory management

 

 

Result processing

• Automated post-processing and updating of all result types (finite elements, reinforced concrete, steelwork) within a fully integrated environment
• Several post-processing methods: graphical results, result curves, stresses diagrams, calculation reports
• Recording of graphical animation, either of the input model or the analysis model
• Fully customizable design reports: styles, tables and graphical images, cover sheet, user input text, linked documents, etc.

 

Reinforced Concrete Design

• The "design template" concept allows for the grouping of elements by their design properties: concrete quality, cracking hypotheses, concrete cover, etc.
• Calculation of theoretical reinforcement sections of linear and planar elements
• Determination of 3D interaction curves on an arbitrary section
• Obtainment of the theoretical reinforcement ratios
• Global design reports include the "concrete" results

 

Steel Design

• The "design template" concept allows for the grouping of elements by their design properties: buckling hypotheses, lateral-buckling restraints, deflections verification, etc.
• Shapes optimization starting from a predefined shapes library and using an automated calculation cycle: FE calculations and successive optimizations
• Shape sheets
• Global design reports include the "steel" results

 

 

Result Memory technology. How does it work?
When a graphical view is stored in memory, Advance Design not only saves the current image, but also the context that generated this image: view angle, zoom, filter of displayed elements, colors and display characteristics, nature of results (iso-values of displacements, values of theoretical reinforcement, magnified stresses), load cases, units, etc.
The views saved, using this technology, may be inserted in a design report, whose global content (current hypotheses, results, graphical views) may also be stored in memory. During each calculation iteration, Advance Design automatically recreates all the graphical views and rewrites the design report using the specified criteria.

 

Innovative interface

• Advanced options for workspace customization
• Dock and undock the different environment components using docking guides
• Display, hide and auto-hide options for the interface components
• Enhanced icon caption readability