Advanced Structural Families

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SIMON DICKINSON: Hello.

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My name is Simon Dickinson.

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In this video, we are going to look

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at some of the advanced structural families.

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We will look at structural trusses

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and how they are configured.

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We will then look at cellular-castellated beams

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and how we can use formulas to control them.

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Let's start by looking at trusses.

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Revit trusses consist of chords that define the family--

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top chords, bottom chords, and webs.

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These are used to define the shape of the trusses.

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The actual structural members that are used

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are loaded separately into the project and defined as and when

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we create the truss.

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The truss family just creates to construct for the beams.

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Like the composition of over Revit families,

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we used constraints and dimensions

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to control the way they expand and change shape based

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upon the placement length.

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From the quality constraint to pinning elements,

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we can use angular dimensions to control bracing.

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When placing a truss, the spanner

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is defined by clicking two points in the same way

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we place, beams.

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Once placed it is also possible to use the attach top base just

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like with walls to control the way

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they joined to other structures such as roofs or floors,

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changing the shape of a truss to match the required space.

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Revit has an extensive library of predefine truss families.

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Always remember that all Revit families

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can be modified and changed to meet your requirements.

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Let's now look at cellular-castellated beams.

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These are created using voids to the geometry of the beam.

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Then using an array to place the voids

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along the length of the beam.

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By using a start and end offset parameter,

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we can better control the spacing.

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Notice that we can create formulas

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in the family parameters.

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This allows us to control the number of voids in our array

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based on the length of the beam, whilst keeping them

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equally spaced regardless of the length

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based on the start and end of our array.

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We can use Boolean formulas to add even more functionality

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to our Revit families.

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We can use if statement.

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To check if a defined argument is true or false.

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This is useful for instance, if we need to add 1 to our array

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based on length.

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Once we have finished creating our families,

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a useful tip is to purge the file.

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All the default templates will have

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certain elements we don't need.

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And this helps us to keep a file size down

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to an absolute minimum.

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To fully purge a family or project,

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you may need to press the Purge button up to three times.

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This is because some elements such as materials

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may have been used by a nested family or element

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you have just purged, and therefore, is now

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available to be purged as it is no longer in use.