3D Rebar Stadiums and Multilevel Structures: A Practical Walk-Through

STEVENS CHEMISE: Hi, everyone. Welcome at the Autodesk University event. I am very pleased to start and to open this session where the class today is named 3D Rebar Stadium and multi-level structure, which means the main topic of today will be to discuss Rebar challenge in our industry, and mostly how to address it in Revit for this particular type of project and structure.

A little bit of myself before starting. So I'm Stevens. I'm based in Paris where the headquarters of the company I'm working for is based as well. I mean, Graitec. I have a structural engineer background.

And today, my job at Graitec as part of the project management team, it's to mainly work on our portfolio of projects. So development and the roadmap, especially on application running top on Autodesk ecosystem environment and Autodesk platform, mainly Revit. And I will please to run and animate this session today with two people. First one of my colleagues Daniel, based in Romania. Daniel, are you there?

DANIEL GHEORGHE: Hello, everyone. I would like to thank you all for attending this class. My name is Daniel. And I'm part of Graitec's R&D department located in Bucharest, Romania. Here we develop most of Graitec technologies like the PowerPack for Revit or Advance Steel.

And also with my structural engineering background, I am helping the sales team with presales demos and trainings in which we promote and implement Autodesk and Graitec technologies.

Today we will shortly present the PowerPack for Revit to you and its key points. And after our partner, Ionel will present to you some projects that were made using Revit and PowerPack for Revit.

STEVENS CHEMISE: Thanks, Daniel. Wonderful. And as you said, we are very pleased to welcome our guest Ionel, who will share his experience on real project. Ionel, can you introduce yourself briefly?

IONEL BADEA: Hello, everyone. My name is Ionel Badea. I'm a structural engineer as a formation and background. I am the manager of the structural design department at one of the biggest companies in Romania for structural design, Popp and Associates.

I have an experience of almost 20 years in structural design, also already certified as expert and technical verifier by the Romanian authorities, members in Romania Association of Structural Design Engineer, involved in large-scale projects with multi-levels below ground and above ground, five to seven basements for some of our biggest projects, and up to 35 levels above ground, stadiums, and also different functions of private and public investment.

We are trying all the time to promote new materials and technologies and working together with our colleagues from Graitec. It is a real challenge in order to develop and implement as much as we can from this BIM and structural design detailing using Revit and the Graitec's PowerPack, which allows us to obtain the best results with minimum resources. Thank you, Stevens.

STEVENS CHEMISE: Thanks, Ionel for this opportunity to share your experience. So as you understood today, who could be interested by this session? Actually, anyone who is working for an engineering office or company close, for example, to the building side, and would like to see how to manage and create Rebar in a BIM environment.

So this session will be a transversal overview of Revit capabilities, and with our Graitec PowerPack to give new possibilities to address and to manipulate Rebar objects in Revit. So in this class, of course, we will remain some key concepts in Revit, or Revit based.

But you will see, thanks to our tools, how to generate Rebar, how to edit them, how our tools and especially our PowerPack is working, and how you can place them in practice on real project based on Popp and Associates experience and feedback.

A little word about Graitec for those of you who do not know who we are. So we are a worldwide software company specializing particularly in developing BIM technology. Which means that in the ROC space, which become more and more collaborative, we are one of the largest Autodesk partner in the world to support you locally with more than 30 offices all around the world.

And at Graitec, we do believe that 3D reinforcement it's key to address new challenge in our industry. Why? Because for sure we often hear from our clients that they are working in a 2D approach, that making drawings in Rebar in 2D is faster, flexible, and so on.

But in a world which become more and more competitive, where the projects are more and more complex, and where deliverables have to be done in a short amount of times, 3D reinforcement is one of the approach to help you to guarantee your consistency and quality for speeding up the reinforcement during generation, reduce error, because you will be sure to always reinforce object with an update formwork model for your project.

You know that we will have automatic quantities take off and live data on your project. For complex nodes in a project, the 3D visualization, the 3D rendering will help you to create and anticipate possible error on the build side with class detection.

And even if it's not mandatory, but for sure it's some possibilities, we can connect Revit to FEM software to generate those 3D Rebar based on FEM data, for example, or use this Rebar information inside all object to export them and link them for fabrication, for example.

So the PowerPack of Graitec is one of two of our portfolio. It's a plugin fully connected and integrated in Revit, composed of a first level of multidisciplinary tools addressed for all industries, such as link to Excel, Family Manager, tool to speed up dimension light, plus 50 tools purely and focus dedicated for Rebar detailing.

For that, I propose and I will let the mic to Daniel, we will introduce some key feature of this PowerPack. Your presentation?

DANIEL GHEORGHE: Hello, again.

STEVENS CHEMISE: Please go.

DANIEL GHEORGHE: So the PowerPack for Revit is intended to respond to a lot of requirements that Revit users have. And at the same time, it innovates the structural engineering processes with its Rebar case generators that we will discover in a few minutes.

As you know, Revit is the most used platform for AC projects. However, given its magnitude it cannot implement any local or all the local requirements. Because this would make it basically unusable. In my opinion, Autodesk is doing a great job developing this platform and allowing third party software developers to improve some processes.

Thus, we position ourselves in a way that we address a lot of requirements that Europe and America markets have. The PowerPack is organized in three packages. One of them it's a more general set of tools while the other ones were specifically developed to streamline the process of creating and detailing Rebar kits.

Let's start with the bending details, one of the most important requests that our offices from Central and Eastern Europe had. For this tool, we developed a parametrical family that borrows information from the Rebar and returns the shape of the Rebar and with the length of the segments. For placement, we also have auto-placement or automatic placements if you select the concrete element.

Next, we have the opening reinforcement, the ability to generate parametrical Rebar cages around openings. You can generate straight diagonal and stirrup bars in seconds. And you can do that while selecting multiple openings. The Rebar cages have zero clashes between them. And they will adapt in case that the opening is too close to the edge of the floor.

Also, you can select doors or window openings for which you can generate also lintel bars. So this is the Rebar cage after the generation.

Let's talk about also about the drawing generator. For this presentation, I chose to make a comparison between the manual process and our tool. Don't worry, the video is on fast forward. [LAUGHS] So I'm not that fast with Revit.

As Revit users, I am sure that you are aware of the struggles to obtain reinforcement drawings. You need to manually create all the sections, assign the templates, then annotate all the Rebars.

We made a tool that automatically creates all the views that you desire for an element. It assigns your view templates, uses your own Rebar tags, or multi Rebar annotation families. After this, all the views that have been created are automatically placed on sheets. You can choose between independent sheets and one sheet for all selected elements.

A Rebar schedule of your choice will be placed on the sheet. And it will automatically show only the Rebars in the sheet. It uses a drawing manager where you control all the drawing configurations. And after that, you just need to select the elements.

As you can see, it took me almost six minutes to create an annotated views for a simple multi-span beam. Our tool will create all the views in 15 seconds. After that, you just need to adjust the bending details for a more clean drawing.

After selection, we developed some connection algorithms that define whether or not your elements belong to a group. For example, the spans of a BIM or continuous columns through the whole height of the building or wall groups.

If the algorithm decides that your elements belong to a group, then specific views can be created for the group, for example, multi-span, BIM elevation, multilevel column elevation, and so on. All Rebars are annotated on their-- are based on their style, standard, or stirrup. So you can adapt the generator to your own style.

What I would like you to keep in mind after this presentation is that the drawing generator is fully customizable. It's easy to use. It's fast. It automatically creates bending details, multi Rebar annotation, places all the views and the schedule on the sheets. And you can use it for all the usual concrete elements.

Now let's see the transversal distribution. Another request that came from clients, specifically clients from seismic countries where they need to reinforce their beams usually with the three zone distribution. Of course, this is not the only option. You have plenty of options to choose from. You can create and distribute your own bar. Or the tool is capable of creating a specific Rebar based on type and shape.

You can have a simple distribution, or two zone distribution. You can set the layout however you want based on spacings and lengths. However, if you want a three zone distribution, you can do that by using our tool. And after you set all the options and generate the bars, the stirrups will be constrained between them. So if you want to change the number of stirrups in your Rebar cage, you just need to change the number in the Rebar set. And all the other ones will update.

Great. Now next we have the split Rebar tool. This tool has been requested a lot in the countries like Romania, where the level of detail for Rebar drawings is extremely high. Using this tool, you can split the Rebar by using a lot of methods. You have simple overlapping, cranking, you can place couplers, or just simple connections.

Everything is parametrical. You can stagger the bars. You control the rule of splitting by number of splits or by maximum length. And also, to aid this process, we implemented also a 3D preview. So you know before whether the result will be the one you expected

Slab detailing is something we developed to aid in this process. It places a detail item family on top of the Rebar set and then borrows information from the Rebar. You can select Rebars, or you can select the concrete element. And all the Rebars hosted by that element will be detailed. After the placement of the detail, the Rebar is set as obscured. So you can still make changes if you want. And the update, in case of a change, is instantaneous.

After the placement you can graphically adjust the position of the distribution symbol of the Rebar or the detail of the bar. You can configure the tag-- the tag family, or the representation style of the detail. And you can align all the details by using the simple align tool from Revit.

Crank Rebars came as a natural extension from Split Rebar. We realized that we should also create a dedicated command for this. Because avoiding Rebar clashes can be difficult sometimes. Now you can simply select all the bars, enter all the options, and then the Rebar sets will be changed.

Rebar schedules are usually placed on sheets. But for those of you who are attaching the Rebar schedule to the sheet as a document, we have this functionality too. This tool will not reproduce your Revit schedule. It uses a template report that will be filled with all the Rebars that are filtered by the Revit schedule. You can run this command by having a Rebar schedule as active view.

And now, as I said in the beginning, we are not making only tools for draftsmen. We are innovating the workflows of structural engineers by easing the design and modeling of reinforcement. By using the PowerPack, you can save a lot of time because you don't calculate by hand any more. We do the calculation on your behalf. You do not model the Rebar cage anymore. And you don't need to make a lot of reports manually.

You can place loads on your elements, or you can use FEM results stored in the results manager of Revit. And the tool will design the elements by using Euro Code, ACI, and CSA codes.

After the calculation, the results are shown in the info panel. The engine will generate the combinations according to the design codes. Or we can make them manually. You can set specific design and reinforcement assumptions for each category of elements. And you can store all these options in templates.

After generation, you can make changes to the Rebar cage by using the dialog. And all changes are then synced in the info panel, diagrams, or reports. All the Rebars that you can see are Revit-native Rebars. And after generating them, you can go ahead and generate drawings or annotate them the way you want. The PowerPack can design beams, columns, walls, floors, and footings, basically all the usual elements.

As I said, we are using FEM results that usually come from Advanced Design or our FEM analysis solution. And the workflow benefits again from interoperability between these two technologies. The analytical model from Revit is exported to Advanced Design where it's being calculated. And then the results come back as results packages and are being used for designing the Rebar cages of the concrete elements.

After generation, you can inspect the results by using the info panel. But usually, the diagrams are more graphical. So for example, you can check the 3D interaction curve of this column. And you can check all the check that have been made required by the code.

As you can see, the whole process is streamlined. By using the PowerPack, you can now automatically design and create Rebar cages. And then you can generate drawings of that Rebar cages and annotate the Rebars the way you want.

In the end, I'm sure that you found this tool very interesting. Again, we are trying to address a lot of requests that come from users. I know that you found some aspects of the PowerPack more useful to your own workflows. And I'm sure that given our relationship with our partners, our solution provides the best results you would expect.

I tried to make a quick summary of the functionalities from the PowerPack. But there are many others who address important needs. I will try to mention some of them, like the ability to place end symbols to the bars, control the visibility, or create bending details for the schedules.

Thank you again for attending this class. And now I will let my partner, Ionel Badea, to present some of the projects that Popp and Associates made using Revit and the PowerPack for Revit.

IONEL BADEA: Thank you, Daniel. And it's a real opportunity to work together and to develop and to implement all these features. In order to be able to develop and to prepare all the drawings and all the required information by the-- especially by the general contractors on the sites, especially on the Romanian market, where they are requiring a high level of detailing for the projects that we are preparing.

Usually, I know that in the other parts of Europe, and not only Europe, but also in other countries of the world, the level of detailing is not so high demanding. But in Romania, this is the demands that we have from our contractors and from our clients. And this is why it's very important to have these kind of tools, to be able to use them, and to come to as in addition to what Revit offers at this moment for detailing especially.

Before going and presenting you some of the projects where we used and implemented this add-on that Graitec prepared for Revit and Daniel presented earlier, I would like to tell you a few words about the company that I'm working on.

With more than 20 years of experience in the field of structural design engineer, Popp and Associates is one of the leading companies on the Romanian design market, a promoter of innovative technologies in the field.

We are a trusted partner for our clients, having experience in designing projects in various sectors such as offices and residential buildings, hotels, industrial objectives, and commercial centers, sports facilities, historical buildings, airports, educational, and healthcare facilities.

With more than 20 years experience in the construction design market, we are already prepared for the construction market in Romania, more than four million square meters as a structural design. And not only structural design but also seismic evaluation and geotechnical engineering, project management, construction materials testing. Also implementing and developing BIM services, which is mainly in the job of one of our youngest companies from the group in charge of this process.

We already started, let's say, a major contract right now for a scan to BIM process for existing buildings, which requires quite some resources starting from the cloud-- point cloud preparation and obtaining the Revit to model at the end of the day of complex existing historical buildings.

In our group we have now 75 employees, which are working in the different fields that I already mentioned before. Some examples of our projects that we already delivered and they are already constructed, mainly in Romania, we are talking about office buildings. Orchidea Tower it's one of the first civil building we've [INAUDIBLE] done in Romania.

Another building with a major impact it's Equilibrium Office, which has cantilevers of seven meters span designed with and constructed using post-tension concrete slabs. City Gate is also one of the major buildings complex in Bucharest with 7.5 meters hang the steel cantilevers on 18 levels.

Ana Tower it's also one of the biggest buildings in Romania with 24 levels, more than 100 meters in height. And it's designed and built with post-tension slabs with spans of up to 10 meters.

Urban Plaza it's also one of the latest projects. It's an ongoing project from the point of view of design and also execution. We delivered 21 buildings with apartments for counting a total number of 1,000 units.

And now we are working together with the architect for the final stage of the project, which includes the tallest building in Brasov, one of the major cities in Romania, with 20 levels and 80 meters in height, the highest and the biggest in Brasov it will be.

Over here, Revit is our main tool to be used during the design process where we are working together with the architect and the MAP to develop the design using BIM processes and procedures.

For this project, not only the coordination it is prepared using the Revit tools but also the detailing. Part of the structural elements are detailed using Revit. And also Graitec PowerPack utilities and function.

Another project where we used the ability and the solutions that Revit provides is Brasov Airport, where we had to combine two structures, steel and concrete. The main structure is made out of concrete with a post-tension slab of up to 60 meters span.

And the steel structure developed in the separate software were combined at the end of the day using IFC protocols, which allowed us to make all the verification, coordination, and clash detections between the two structure in order to avoid any complications during the execution time.

Over here, the biggest part of the structural elements were designed, detailed, and the execution drawings were prepared using the Revit and Graitec's PowerPack, especially for the slabs, where we use different functions and the abilities of Graitec's PowerPack.

And the last is also in the other field of development, we are talking about some sports functions, functions like stadiums. We just finished the execution of two major stadiums in Bucharest, Steaua and Giulesti, which are the second and third is dimension from Bucharest. Steaua Stadium, it was done and already in use. Giulesti, the same.

Over here we used the Revit tools in order to be able to coordinate and to prepare the design for such a complex structure like a stadium is. Precasted elements also were part of the Revit functions that we used for developing the design.

From these examples that we mentioned, we will go forward and detail a little bit what we applied and what we are-- which was the help of Revit and the Graitec's PowerPack.

First of all, we will discuss about Steaua Bucharest football stadium. Which as I mentioned, is the second stadium as dimension from Romania design and built 100% using Romanian companies. The stadium in figures is presented by its 31,000 seats. And the GBA of about 80,000 square meters, with a budget of 95 million euros. It lead at the end of the day to a price of 3,000 euros per seat.

The contract was a design and build project, one which our company acted as a general designer and the structural designer. We are able to obtain in four months from the signing the contract the building permit. The execution of the structure took 10 months. And an additional five months were necessary in order to complete the full stadium.

As a main parameter, I may say that the roof trusses have spans of up to 35 meters. And for designing this, we needed also to perform a wind tunnel test in order to evaluate with the maximum accuracy the wind action on the roof.

The Revit model was used in this case for general coordination with the architect in order to be able to coordinate and to avoid any errors during the execution. Because being a design and build contract, the time is very short. And you don't have time in order to be able to remediate any kind of errors.

So this is why it was a must to have everything clean and clear from the beginning for the contractor. Because the plans that we are printing today, tomorrow they are in execution. So this is why it was mandatory to be able to have this kind of tool to be able to coordinate first of all with the architect in order to avoid the later problems.

At the same time, to give the support to the MAP guys to have the structure and to be able to coordinate their openings and equipments with our structure. This was, let's say, one of the direction.

Secondly, we used the Revit ability to detail and to obtain construction documents for part of the structural elements. And we are talking here about preparing the general layouts of the structure based on the 3D model, where we obtained the general arrangements for the precast elements, such as the concrete stents and the regular beams that are supporting the concrete stents.

Also, we made the coordination between the steel structure and the concrete structure of the roof in order to avoid any clashes between the two parts of the main structure. Again, this coordination was done using IFC files, since the steel structure was developed in a different software.

Also, we used a 3D model for concrete element quantity takeoffs necessary for the contractor to prepare its BOQs. For detailing, as I mentioned, we used the Revit and the Graitec PowerPack in order to be able to detail some of the concrete elements.

We are giving here an example of the precasted top columns, which were installed from the last level of the stadium to the roof. It is actually the support-- the main support of the roof trusses. They were columns of 12 meters length to be precasted in a factory and then just to be installed on site in order to avoid the, let's say, the workmanship necessary especially for formwork and scaffolding for these kind of elements and also to obtain the best shape of the column.

After modeling the reinforcement using Revit for these columns, we used the Graitec PowerPack in order to develop and prepare the construction documents which are provided to the contractor to prepare the elements to fabricate it and afterwards to install it on site.

Another important issue that we are able to coordinate using Revit software is the clash detection between different elements that needs to be assembled on site. In some cases, we had to insert connection elements between two different concrete precasted elements to ensure the lateral stability during earthquake.

Further, using the detailed plans and the detailed Rebar scheduling, we provided the contractor the numerical command files to obtain directly the bended reinforcement that is necessary for him to execute this column.

Another type of project which are usually preparing and developing in our office are the multilevel structures for the office buildings. I will present you one of the latest projects, where we used the Revit as our main tool for designing and preparing the drawings and the execution. And also, for the detailing, like you mentioned, the functions and the help of Graitec's PowerPack.

The building that we are talking about it's two underground basement building and the 11 stories above ground with a total GBA of about 31 square meters. It is part of a building complex that comprises four buildings. This is the last one to be built. The execution is just at the beginning.

From the initial client requirements according to the scope of works, a BIM processed was required to be used during the design development. And based on the BIM execution plan, an LOD free handed was required as mandatory from the client.

Here we started like we usually do for these kind of projects with the full 3D structural model that was prepared for us for later detailing. This 3D model was based on the architectural model in order to have the same starting points, the same basis.

This way, we are able to coordinate a 3D model reinforcement details with all the other requirements, especially by the MAP openings and penetrations that usually are mandatory in these kind of buildings and can create some headaches during detailing, especially due to the fact that in Romania, due to the seismic earthquake-- seismic effect on the structures, the concrete shield walls are the ones that are overtaking the entire shield force. And they are requiring a lot of reinforcement.

And also, in the same shield walls, the MAP guys come and ask for penetrations in order to come with the HVAC ducts and all their pipes. And this can create a real headache for the structural engineer. First of all, to be able to insert those openings. And afterwards, to be able to insert the reinforcement inside.

And this is why for these kind of buildings, creating a 3D Rebar model of the element it's almost mandatory in order to be able to be sure that you are able to insert all the reinforcement inside of that element, and also to be able to put some concrete inside of it.

So this is generally how a building-- an office building looks in Romania. The architects requires as less walls it can be inside of the building. The seismic requires usually more walls than the architects it's allowing us.

And at the end of the day, the MAP guys comes and makes some openings inside of them to be sure that everything works perfect at the end of the day. So it's a normal challenge for any office building that we are designing.

Also, for our internal use, we developed the central model where our colleagues that develop the 3D model and the details work together and prepare the-- detail the model for reinforcement, and afterwards, the construction documents that were required according to the contract.

As a requirement by the client, a model audit and clash detection was prepared by a third party chosen by the client using Navisworks as a tool in order to be sure that during the execution they will not have problems and everything to go as smooth as possible.

Also, based on the 3D model, the quantity takeoff was provided with a high level of accuracy in order for them to have a clear budget for this investment. Another important aspect for the client was the constructability of the building.

And using a 3D model as a tool, you have the best-- you obtain the best approach in order to be sure that what you are designing, it can be constructed. And not only in terms of technological ways and means, but also in terms of health and safety for the construction team.

Further, this model probably it will be developed to the next level for the further phases of the project, such as construction, management, as built at the end of the process, and most probably also for the facility management of the building when the building it will be already finalized. As we mentioned, the LOD used in this case, we are talking about 300 for general coordination and 350 for detailing of the structural elements.

Here are some examples of our detailing using 3D Rebars for different types of elements. For example, on the left side of the slide, you can see a coupling BIM which looks like something new for most of the designers.

It's a seismic coupling BIM with high forces and specific requirements, with a lot of reinforcement inside. Big diameters, we are talking about Rebars 25, 28, and 32 millimeters constructed in special cages that needs to be inserted inside the concrete element.

And besides this, all these diagonal cages that I'm talking about with big diameters, they are enveloped in the, let's say, rectangular cage in order to ensure the integrity of the concrete element. Also, the slab reinforcement was developed and prepared using the 3D model and the Graitec PowerPack.

This is how, at the end of the day, the drawings, the construction drawings look like. They give the full information, all the Rebar detailing, the Rebar bending, overlaps, and everything is necessary on site to be built. Also the bending details and Rebar scheduling was exported and provided the NC files for the contractor to prepare and deliver the reinforcement on site.

Another aspect that we were able to perform using Revit was the clash detection between the steel structure and the concrete structure that we have it, especially on the top part.

And also, the general coordination, the clash detection, and the combination of the three specialties that we have inside of a building project, architect, structure, and the MAP, all the clash detection, like I mentioned, was performed and checked prior of execution of the building.

As the structural engineer, this is one of the main benefits implementing the BIM project, especially that all the designers are working from the beginning. And they are developing a detailed concept that is reducing the risk of later mis-coordination in the design during the later design.

With the help of Graitec PowerPack, we are able to go also to the next level to obtain a detailed design of the structural elements. And the requirement for this detailed design, especially here in this part of Europe, but as far as I know also in the Western part is becoming more and more as a normal requirements on the contractor to obtain a 3D Rebar model.

It will come probably as a requirement also for the Autodesk to develop more this part of the Revit as native tools to be able to prepare these drawings with minimum resources.

At the end of the presentation, I would like to show you part of the team that worked on these projects. They are specialized in Revit and Graitec PowerPack use. They worked for-- we were more than 40 years experience some of them. Some of them are young and ready to start and to-- they are prepared for new challenges.

I think one of the most important benefits of Revit is that it's easy training software, which all users can apply after a normal basic course at the beginning of their career. And afterwards to develop with the next phases.

Revit in our company was implemented as a strategy with about six years ago. We are now developing together with Graitec all this part of detailing because it is required. And I hope that for the next projects we will be able to design 100% 3D Rebar reinforcements for our buildings. Thank you. And I hope to see you soon for the next interesting future projects.

STEVENS CHEMISE: Many thanks, Ionel, for this very interesting presentation. It was so cool to see so many amazing projects run based on those software, and for share your skills and your experience, and see how you put all of this in practice in live.

Again, thanks to all the audience for your participation to this session. Hope you appreciate it. Don't be shy. If you have some questions, please, ask. Do not hesitate to visit our websites, both for Popp and Associate and Graitec if you want to connect to us. I think you can reach out quite easily through any social media you want, especially LinkedIn.

So do not hesitate to place comment to rate this class, place your comment, share your feedback, and connect to us for any question. Wish you a good Autodesk University event. Thanks to all for your participation, and hope to see you soon. Thanks. Bye.