At the time the design is executed (either by View/Update or Design All), the program will automatically size the reinforcement for all Wall Panels in a Wall Design Group that do not have a Bar Pattern assignment or Manual Reinforcement assignment. This section discusses the method used by the program to establish the Bar Patterns and reinforcing bars for each Wall Panel.

RAM Concrete Wall module sorts the Bar Patterns generated from the Bar Pattern Template in order of increasing steel area per lineal foot. For each Wall Panel in the Wall Design Group, the program places bars according to the first Bar Pattern in the list, which is the lightest steel layout. Each Section Cut in the Wall Design Group is then evaluated for the strength and prescriptive requirements of the selected design code. If a Section Cut fails, the program determines which Wall Panels the Section Cut intersects, increments to the next Bar Pattern for each intersecting Wall Panel, and places the bars again in these Wall Panels for the new Bar Pattern. At this point the program steps to the next Section Cut and the same process is repeated.

This entire process is repeated until either all Section Cuts pass, or the program reaches the last Bar Pattern in the list for all Section Cuts that still fail. All Wall Panels intersecting the Section Cut that are frozen (i.e., have been either explicitly assigned a Bar Pattern or have been assigned Manual Reinforcing) will not be upsized as previously described. These Wall Panels will retain their original reinforcing assignment during the optimization process.