Defining Stories with Building Floor Manager

Prior to exchanging Structural discipline models to RAM Structural Systems for analysis, a set of reference planes within the DGN file with various elevations must be defined. These are then interpreted as stories in the RAM Structural System environment. The interoperability between Structural discipline and RAM Structural System encompasses common OpenBuildings Designer tools such as the Floor Manager and Floor Selector.

The Floor Manager can also be invoked by clicking (Floor Manager) tool icon on the Floor Selector dialog. Floor Manager defines floor elements in a project settings file named BB_FloorMaster.DGNLIB. This file is edited when the Floor Manager is invoked. Exiting Floor Manager completes the edits to the floor master DGNLIB.

Tip: The Floor Manager DGNLIB is defined by the configuration variable BB_FLOORMASTER_DGN.

Structural Floors Example

Before the floors are defined, a definition for the group of floors called or Building must be created. Floors are then added with elevation values.

Tip: Elevations values are set automatically using common value increments. Editing floor elevations automatically updates any adjoining floors.

Additional information for each floor may be added for identification, querying and reporting in the right panel. The example illustrates a Building defined as RAM Structural System containing these floor definitions; Base, TOS Floor 1, TOS Floor 2, TOS Floor 3 and TOS Roof. Each corresponds to the top of steel location when the RAM Structural System model is created.

Floor Discipline Property

Ram Structural System requires that members be assigned to specific floors in a structure. Therefore, the Floor Manager Discipline property for each floor must be set to Structural to be able to exchange floor data with RAM Structural System. Incoming floors from RAM Structural System automatically set the Discipline property to Structural.

Splice Level

An additional component of floor/story definitions exchanged between RAM Structural System and Structural discipline is Splice Level information. Each floor definition in Structural discipline contains an attribute that may be set to True or False dictating whether the floor is to be recognized as a splice level. The attribute Column Splice Floor is found on the right panel of the Floor Manager dialog, and corresponds to the state of the Splice Level setting in RAM Structural System.