• Civil 3D

Design rail assemblies

Design a rail assembly and use the sub-assembly composer in Civil 3D.


00:00

In this rail back-to-basic video, we will review the rail subassemblies that are available to us in Civil 3D,

00:11

and we will briefly look at the subassembly composer.

00:14

We will set up our assemblies prior to creating a rail corridor.

00:19

For this example, we will mostly discuss A2 track layout,

00:23

but we will look at some of our expanded capabilities for multi-track or yard layouts.

00:28

To create the assembly, we will go in the Home tab to Assemblies and pick Create Assembly.

00:35

In the assembly dialog box, we will give our assembly a name.

00:39

And generally, we want to pick something that makes sense that we can identify, and we'll pick the type as Railway.

00:45

And the rest of the default settings are fine as they are.

00:47

And we'll pick a point in our CAD file, and then we'll see the assembly targets.

00:52

For this workflow, it's a good idea to have our Properties window open.

00:56

And we can access the out-of-the-box assemblies by opening the tool palette,

01:02

or we can go to the Rail tab and pick the Subassemblies icon.

01:06

For this example, we will mostly use the metric rail subassemblies, but the workflow is going to be the same either way.

01:13

And we'll start by creating a double-track assembly, and we'll pick the rail double-track cant with extra layers.

01:19

That is a mouthful.

01:20

And in this properties dialog box, we can see all the parameters that are available to us when we create this assembly.

01:27

So, we can choose to customize these values now, or we can revise them later.

01:31

Let's pick our target and we'll see this subassembly appear with the default values.

01:37

When we select the assembly, we will see those parameters appear again in our Properties box, and we'll edit some of those values now.

01:45

So, let's change the sub-ballast slope.

01:47

We'll change that to 50:1 and we could adjust the gauge value here if we wanted to.

01:53

We're using standard gauge, so we'll stay with 1435, and we have control over nearly every other element of our rail section,

02:02

including the ballast shoulder and the depth.

02:06

And we'll revise the track spacing now.

02:08

But when we create a corridor, those locations will be based on our rail alignments.

02:15

We can also adjust or remove sub layers if we need to.

02:19

And for each layer we can control the side slope, depending on the specifications of our project.

02:25

And here we can create a deeper subbase layer, and we'll add nearly vertical sides.

02:31

And then from the Basic tab, we will pick our side slope condition.

02:36

Again, we have control over a lot of these parameters.

02:40

We can set up a decision table here for our in conditions that will create our cut and fill slopes.

02:46

We can also create a ditch or berm if we needed to, and then we will add those to both sides.

02:53

So now, let's make an assembly for our station platform area.

02:58

And we'll create a new assembly.

02:60

Again, give it a name that we’ll recognize, because we'll need to choose from multiple assemblies when we create our corridor.

03:06

We'll pick dual track assembly and revise the parameters.

03:11

And one key change that we'll make here is that we want to make the side slopes nearly vertical by making that ratio .001:1.

03:20

And when we do this, we might have some abnormal shapes in the center.

03:24

We can revise this by adjusting the drainage channel.

03:28

We'll make that basically level, and then we can revise the step ballast and the side slopes there.

03:34

Now, we'll add the platform.

03:36

With this side platform, we'll have a lot of perimeters to wade through here as well.

03:41

Critical dimensions that we care about are the wall width, and that controls the width of our platform, and the foundation shift.

03:51

In this case, we want to be immediately up against our ballast section.

03:56

We can measure this distance, and, in this case, it is .156 meters, so we'll add that dimension to the shift.

04:05

And in the subassembly platform overhang, and the foundation shift really should be the same value.

04:13

We could also remove the overhang entirely if we wanted to.

04:17

In this case, we'll leave that small overhang.

04:20

We have a few tools that will save us some time when it comes to subassemblies.

04:24

When we select a subassembly, we can choose from a few options in the ribbon.

04:29

And here, we want to mirror that platform on the other side.

04:33

It is exactly the same thing on the left side.

04:35

And so, we can then pick our insertion point.

04:38

And just looking at this, we really should have revised the foundation depth so we can do that.

04:44

Now sometimes, we do have to test some of the values that are available, and that looks like that's pretty good for our purpose.

04:51

So, let's create another subassembly.

04:53

In this case, we want to copy the subassembly from a previous assembly that we created.

04:60

So, we'll select the part that we want, and pick our insertion point, or our target.

05:05

And here, we want to add retaining walls on both sides of our assembly.

05:09

We'll adjust those parameters from the retaining wall,

05:14

and we can view the changes that we've made when we make those.

05:19

For instance, if we want to remove the key, we can do that.

05:22

And let's mirror that to the other side.

05:25

And looks like we're set this time.

05:28

Let's copy an entire assembly, move that over here, and rename that in the property dialog box.

05:36

This one would have just one wall, so let's get rid of the left wall, make changes to those parameters,

05:42

and add the ballast and subballast side slopes.

05:46

This time for our in condition, we will go to the daylight tab and use the daylight general subassembly.

05:53

This way, we can view our ditch that we create.

05:56

With this parameter set, we can customize our cut condition to include a ditch near the corridor.

06:02

And when we place it, we can see we inverted our values.

06:06

OK, so let's fix that.

06:08

Keep in mind -3 goes down, 3:1 goes up.

06:12

Make those adjustments, that looks more like what we want.

06:15

We can also create single tracks for yard or multi track condition.

06:20

We'll look at one for the left side.

06:24

Update those parameters and side slopes.

06:27

Now, let's create a center track.

06:29

Update those as well, and let's create a right-side track.

06:34

And with this one, let's add a wall to the right side, just like we did with some of those other sections.

06:42

One more section that we want to make is a skeletonize track.

06:47

So, let's pick that middle track.

06:49

We'll copy everything, move it over, and we're going to turn everything off except the rails and the sleepers,

06:56

and we'll show how this is to be applied when we create our corridor.

07:00

And with that, let's make a ballast-only section.

07:04

Copy our standard section, go with this one, and we'll keep everything except the rails and the sleepers.

07:12

And again, we'll explain how this will work a little later on.

07:17

Now, let's briefly get into Subassembly Composer.

07:21

We'll show some simple examples here.

07:24

In the Composer window, we can see our point lines and shapes in the flow chart, and we have a preview of our section.

07:32

As we select any of those elements in the flow chart, we can see the corresponding parts highlight in the preview.

07:39

We can see the point codes.

07:40

We can define the point codes.

07:43

We can see the values that are used to control these different elements.

07:46

And we can also set up our assemblies with adjustable parameters.

07:51

And here we can see a preview of what happens when we adjust those.

07:55

We can also set up target parameters that give us more control when we are creating corridors.

08:03

And we can see how these values change in our assembly when those values adjust or when those markers move.

08:11

So, let's make a simple rail platform.

08:14

The first thing to do is drag and drop a point into our flow chart, and we can define the codes for each point as we place them.

08:23

This one will be the center line of our track.

08:27

Let's grab another point, and that will be our platform edge line.

08:32

We don't need to link these because we're not going to have a point to connect these two dots.

08:37

And it's about a meter above our rails, and we'll define that point as the platform edge.

08:43

Now, let's draw the top width of our platform.

08:46

We have a number of ways that we can define this point.

08:49

And we'll make this based on slope and Delta X.

08:53

Our slope is pretty flat, we'll pick -.3%, and the platform width will be set at 4 meters.

09:00

We'll define those with targets, but we've not defined those yet.

09:03

So, let's zoom to our section preview and we'll continue to work around the shape of our platform.

09:10

And our last point will be based on the Inside Edge platform.

09:14

And we need a link to complete that shape.

09:18

And that is between .5 and .4.

09:22

We’ll create a shape.

09:23

And if our shape is closed, we can just select inside that area with the selection tool, and it will fill in.

09:30

In our parameters, we can create a material type.

09:32

And so, let's do that.

09:34

Let's make it concrete and define that as material.

09:38

And now, we can create a foundation that is similar to our platform, and we'll make a bit of an overhang.

09:47

Next, let's make some target parameters.

09:49

We want to be able to target both the inside and the outside of our platform and target the elevations.

09:57

This way, we can utilize those platform edge lines that we created in our drawing earlier.

10:02

So, we'll define those targets with something that makes sense.

10:07

And once we do that, we'll see target arrows show up in our preview.

10:11

We can move these, but nothing happens because we haven't linked those in our assembly yet.

10:16

So, let's set these up now.

10:18

We'll do that by defining the geometry properties with slope and Delta X.

10:24

So, we'll pick the point we want to define and the locations.

10:28

We'll do that for the inside and outside points, and for the elevation.

10:33

We’ll also do that for both platform edge points.

10:36

We have a few other items that we want to set.

10:39

We can make as variable parameters that we can define in our drawing, our platform depth, and our foundation depth.

10:48

Now, we should be ready to use this subassembly.

10:53

So back in our CAD file, we will copy the platform assembly, and we'll rename it, then replace the out-of-the-box platforms.

11:03

So, let's go to the insert tab.

11:06

And in this latest version of Civil 3D, we can insert subassemblies directly into our drawing.

11:13

Generally, we would go through the tool palette to add subassemblies that we've created.

11:18

So, we'll pick our assembly name.

11:21

This one is the platform.

11:23

And in the command line, we will pick replace, and pick our right platform.

11:27

Now this is offset.

11:29

And if you recall, we set our origin point to the center line of the track.

11:34

So, we'll pick our assembly, and we will move that to our insertion point at the center line.

11:40

And it looks like we're in good shape now.

11:43

Now we can also just delete part of this subassembly that we don't need.

11:47

We've actually created a left platform that was similar to our right platform.

11:53

We'll set that up the same way.

11:54

And this time, we'll pick platform left, pick our insertion point.

11:59

This time it's the center line, and now we're all set.

Video transcript

00:00

In this rail back-to-basic video, we will review the rail subassemblies that are available to us in Civil 3D,

00:11

and we will briefly look at the subassembly composer.

00:14

We will set up our assemblies prior to creating a rail corridor.

00:19

For this example, we will mostly discuss A2 track layout,

00:23

but we will look at some of our expanded capabilities for multi-track or yard layouts.

00:28

To create the assembly, we will go in the Home tab to Assemblies and pick Create Assembly.

00:35

In the assembly dialog box, we will give our assembly a name.

00:39

And generally, we want to pick something that makes sense that we can identify, and we'll pick the type as Railway.

00:45

And the rest of the default settings are fine as they are.

00:47

And we'll pick a point in our CAD file, and then we'll see the assembly targets.

00:52

For this workflow, it's a good idea to have our Properties window open.

00:56

And we can access the out-of-the-box assemblies by opening the tool palette,

01:02

or we can go to the Rail tab and pick the Subassemblies icon.

01:06

For this example, we will mostly use the metric rail subassemblies, but the workflow is going to be the same either way.

01:13

And we'll start by creating a double-track assembly, and we'll pick the rail double-track cant with extra layers.

01:19

That is a mouthful.

01:20

And in this properties dialog box, we can see all the parameters that are available to us when we create this assembly.

01:27

So, we can choose to customize these values now, or we can revise them later.

01:31

Let's pick our target and we'll see this subassembly appear with the default values.

01:37

When we select the assembly, we will see those parameters appear again in our Properties box, and we'll edit some of those values now.

01:45

So, let's change the sub-ballast slope.

01:47

We'll change that to 50:1 and we could adjust the gauge value here if we wanted to.

01:53

We're using standard gauge, so we'll stay with 1435, and we have control over nearly every other element of our rail section,

02:02

including the ballast shoulder and the depth.

02:06

And we'll revise the track spacing now.

02:08

But when we create a corridor, those locations will be based on our rail alignments.

02:15

We can also adjust or remove sub layers if we need to.

02:19

And for each layer we can control the side slope, depending on the specifications of our project.

02:25

And here we can create a deeper subbase layer, and we'll add nearly vertical sides.

02:31

And then from the Basic tab, we will pick our side slope condition.

02:36

Again, we have control over a lot of these parameters.

02:40

We can set up a decision table here for our in conditions that will create our cut and fill slopes.

02:46

We can also create a ditch or berm if we needed to, and then we will add those to both sides.

02:53

So now, let's make an assembly for our station platform area.

02:58

And we'll create a new assembly.

02:60

Again, give it a name that we’ll recognize, because we'll need to choose from multiple assemblies when we create our corridor.

03:06

We'll pick dual track assembly and revise the parameters.

03:11

And one key change that we'll make here is that we want to make the side slopes nearly vertical by making that ratio .001:1.

03:20

And when we do this, we might have some abnormal shapes in the center.

03:24

We can revise this by adjusting the drainage channel.

03:28

We'll make that basically level, and then we can revise the step ballast and the side slopes there.

03:34

Now, we'll add the platform.

03:36

With this side platform, we'll have a lot of perimeters to wade through here as well.

03:41

Critical dimensions that we care about are the wall width, and that controls the width of our platform, and the foundation shift.

03:51

In this case, we want to be immediately up against our ballast section.

03:56

We can measure this distance, and, in this case, it is .156 meters, so we'll add that dimension to the shift.

04:05

And in the subassembly platform overhang, and the foundation shift really should be the same value.

04:13

We could also remove the overhang entirely if we wanted to.

04:17

In this case, we'll leave that small overhang.

04:20

We have a few tools that will save us some time when it comes to subassemblies.

04:24

When we select a subassembly, we can choose from a few options in the ribbon.

04:29

And here, we want to mirror that platform on the other side.

04:33

It is exactly the same thing on the left side.

04:35

And so, we can then pick our insertion point.

04:38

And just looking at this, we really should have revised the foundation depth so we can do that.

04:44

Now sometimes, we do have to test some of the values that are available, and that looks like that's pretty good for our purpose.

04:51

So, let's create another subassembly.

04:53

In this case, we want to copy the subassembly from a previous assembly that we created.

04:60

So, we'll select the part that we want, and pick our insertion point, or our target.

05:05

And here, we want to add retaining walls on both sides of our assembly.

05:09

We'll adjust those parameters from the retaining wall,

05:14

and we can view the changes that we've made when we make those.

05:19

For instance, if we want to remove the key, we can do that.

05:22

And let's mirror that to the other side.

05:25

And looks like we're set this time.

05:28

Let's copy an entire assembly, move that over here, and rename that in the property dialog box.

05:36

This one would have just one wall, so let's get rid of the left wall, make changes to those parameters,

05:42

and add the ballast and subballast side slopes.

05:46

This time for our in condition, we will go to the daylight tab and use the daylight general subassembly.

05:53

This way, we can view our ditch that we create.

05:56

With this parameter set, we can customize our cut condition to include a ditch near the corridor.

06:02

And when we place it, we can see we inverted our values.

06:06

OK, so let's fix that.

06:08

Keep in mind -3 goes down, 3:1 goes up.

06:12

Make those adjustments, that looks more like what we want.

06:15

We can also create single tracks for yard or multi track condition.

06:20

We'll look at one for the left side.

06:24

Update those parameters and side slopes.

06:27

Now, let's create a center track.

06:29

Update those as well, and let's create a right-side track.

06:34

And with this one, let's add a wall to the right side, just like we did with some of those other sections.

06:42

One more section that we want to make is a skeletonize track.

06:47

So, let's pick that middle track.

06:49

We'll copy everything, move it over, and we're going to turn everything off except the rails and the sleepers,

06:56

and we'll show how this is to be applied when we create our corridor.

07:00

And with that, let's make a ballast-only section.

07:04

Copy our standard section, go with this one, and we'll keep everything except the rails and the sleepers.

07:12

And again, we'll explain how this will work a little later on.

07:17

Now, let's briefly get into Subassembly Composer.

07:21

We'll show some simple examples here.

07:24

In the Composer window, we can see our point lines and shapes in the flow chart, and we have a preview of our section.

07:32

As we select any of those elements in the flow chart, we can see the corresponding parts highlight in the preview.

07:39

We can see the point codes.

07:40

We can define the point codes.

07:43

We can see the values that are used to control these different elements.

07:46

And we can also set up our assemblies with adjustable parameters.

07:51

And here we can see a preview of what happens when we adjust those.

07:55

We can also set up target parameters that give us more control when we are creating corridors.

08:03

And we can see how these values change in our assembly when those values adjust or when those markers move.

08:11

So, let's make a simple rail platform.

08:14

The first thing to do is drag and drop a point into our flow chart, and we can define the codes for each point as we place them.

08:23

This one will be the center line of our track.

08:27

Let's grab another point, and that will be our platform edge line.

08:32

We don't need to link these because we're not going to have a point to connect these two dots.

08:37

And it's about a meter above our rails, and we'll define that point as the platform edge.

08:43

Now, let's draw the top width of our platform.

08:46

We have a number of ways that we can define this point.

08:49

And we'll make this based on slope and Delta X.

08:53

Our slope is pretty flat, we'll pick -.3%, and the platform width will be set at 4 meters.

09:00

We'll define those with targets, but we've not defined those yet.

09:03

So, let's zoom to our section preview and we'll continue to work around the shape of our platform.

09:10

And our last point will be based on the Inside Edge platform.

09:14

And we need a link to complete that shape.

09:18

And that is between .5 and .4.

09:22

We’ll create a shape.

09:23

And if our shape is closed, we can just select inside that area with the selection tool, and it will fill in.

09:30

In our parameters, we can create a material type.

09:32

And so, let's do that.

09:34

Let's make it concrete and define that as material.

09:38

And now, we can create a foundation that is similar to our platform, and we'll make a bit of an overhang.

09:47

Next, let's make some target parameters.

09:49

We want to be able to target both the inside and the outside of our platform and target the elevations.

09:57

This way, we can utilize those platform edge lines that we created in our drawing earlier.

10:02

So, we'll define those targets with something that makes sense.

10:07

And once we do that, we'll see target arrows show up in our preview.

10:11

We can move these, but nothing happens because we haven't linked those in our assembly yet.

10:16

So, let's set these up now.

10:18

We'll do that by defining the geometry properties with slope and Delta X.

10:24

So, we'll pick the point we want to define and the locations.

10:28

We'll do that for the inside and outside points, and for the elevation.

10:33

We’ll also do that for both platform edge points.

10:36

We have a few other items that we want to set.

10:39

We can make as variable parameters that we can define in our drawing, our platform depth, and our foundation depth.

10:48

Now, we should be ready to use this subassembly.

10:53

So back in our CAD file, we will copy the platform assembly, and we'll rename it, then replace the out-of-the-box platforms.

11:03

So, let's go to the insert tab.

11:06

And in this latest version of Civil 3D, we can insert subassemblies directly into our drawing.

11:13

Generally, we would go through the tool palette to add subassemblies that we've created.

11:18

So, we'll pick our assembly name.

11:21

This one is the platform.

11:23

And in the command line, we will pick replace, and pick our right platform.

11:27

Now this is offset.

11:29

And if you recall, we set our origin point to the center line of the track.

11:34

So, we'll pick our assembly, and we will move that to our insertion point at the center line.

11:40

And it looks like we're in good shape now.

11:43

Now we can also just delete part of this subassembly that we don't need.

11:47

We've actually created a left platform that was similar to our right platform.

11:53

We'll set that up the same way.

11:54

And this time, we'll pick platform left, pick our insertion point.

11:59

This time it's the center line, and now we're all set.

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