Structural engineers are often faced with the design of reinforcement of concrete building structures. Currently, the most established way for reinforcement design is traditional method of 2D design of reinforcement plans for concrete structures. The most used software in such cases is still is AutoCAD program, with various add-on like ArmCAD Radimpex. But this method is already well behind, data and project changes are not updated, more errors occur, work is less efficient and slower as it is limited with 2D CAD invironment. Many engineers are therefore swtiching to BIM softwares. With BIM you get a complete solution for 2D, 3D design, and you get rid of various costly and outdated applications such as ArmCAD and AutoCAD.
STRAKON DICAD – 2D/3D BIM software for 3D Reinforcement
STRAKON from German company is a CAD and BIM software for creating your BIM DICAD, which enables efficient, fast and easy production of projects with formwork and reinforcement plans including with all 3D reinforcements views and details. All changes and corrections are made extremely quickly, without errors and duplicated work. Extremely easy modeling even in 3D view, with automation of quotations, marking and production of bill of materials will greatly increase the quality of your projects. STRAKON allows you to participate in the BIM process with other disciplines, as the program also supports the exchange of IFC files.
You can design even the most complex reinforced concrete structures both in 2D and 3D environment. Let’s see a simple process of STRAKON Software in action.
1 Create a structural model
In this case we will focus on Cube View mode, where we create 3D models. We need to form and design a structure in this case we make a sloped beam. Modeling process in STRAKON is very easy.
2 Create 3D Reinforcement
When we have our 3D model of structure, we can create the 3D reinforcement very quickly and with no effort. We can change all parameters of the reinforcement if we want additional changes of our design (number of bars, shape, position, layout distance, diameters etc.). We can choose between various bending shapes (straight bars, stirrups..) or we can draw our own bending shape. When we use reinforcement commands the sloped shape is automatically detected so is the opening in the beam. After creating the strirrups, we can create longitudal bars, all reinforcement elements are positioned correctly as STRAKON considers all other reinforcement. In this case we work on beam, so the reinforcement of slabs will be covered in other article.
If we change dimension of the 3D structural elements, the reinforcement and annotation changes accordingly too. If we extend the shape of the beam, the new stirrups are added and bars are lengthen automatically.
Analyze and control your project
If we are not sure about some details, we can always run STRAKON’s clash (collision) detection tool and all problematic areas will light up in red color. We can also compare our existing model with previous or other version of the project with importing the IFC file of that project.
3 Create sections, plans and 3D views with annotations, labels and schedules
After you have created your structure model with reinforcement, you can create all kinds of views and sections. With one click you import these to your STRAKON Layout environment and make 3D drawings. Automatically with ease you can add your labels, dimensions, texts, schemes and schedules. With all changes in 3D view the sections and other 2D drawings including schedules and labeling are accordingly changed.