Building Designer - General Update

This Service pack enhances the following issues

Building Designer

A program instability which could occur when panning and zooming in the 2D view when arched grid lines exist.

On some computers and operating systems and depending on access privileges the NHF loadcase titles were being displayed as blank.

Reports - Beam End Forces : Max Min\Forces - when only one combination is selected - the section size which is reported below the beam reference was being omitted.

Reports - Brace Forces : Max\Min Forces - when only one combination is selected - the section size which is reported below the beam reference was being omitted.

Reports - Splice load report has been enhanced to include the component of eccentricity moment in the major and minor axes for General Columns.

The RHS, SHS and CHS orderfiles have been updated, because the automatic design of elements which allow these profiles would not select sections whose size ended in .0

Composite Beam Design - Concrete Decks when the PNA falls within the beam web, the program reported an infinite number for the calculaton of Moment Capacity for rolled and plated beams

Composite Beam Design - a crash occurred when combinations had been included for SLS design, but not included ULS design.

Finally, a number of tolerance issues have been addressed related to load decomposition and model generation and validation.

Moment Connection

A program instability which occurred when editing the bolt gauge.

Bolt lever arms were not being updated when section size of beam was changed.

Splice Connection

Check 3 Flange cover plate bolt group - When both internal and external flange plates are defined, the program was calculating the reduction factor incorrectly and also not taking account of the number of flange plates when calculating the bolt shear capacity ratio.

We have also included a refinement to the design model when a non bearing splice has both external and internal flange cover plates. So, Check 3 bearing on the flange cover plates - we now check both external and internal plate thicknesses, and the flange design force is shared 50:50 between them. However, to ensure that the external and internal plates are reasonably proportioned there are some amendments to Check 1 'Recommended detailing practice'.

Check 5 - Web cover plate group - Status of design check correct, but incorrect values were being displayed in the report for
Bearing capacity of bolt top pair
Bearing capacity of column web bolts
Bearing capacity ratio of column web

Simple Connection

Fin Plate connection, the horizontal bolt pitch gb was being incorrectly shown on the 2D view. This view is also used to draw the picture in the report.

Column Base Connection

Rib stiffeners - if the stiffener failed the weld design check, changing the stiffener weld leg length had no affect.

Building Designer - Vibration Update

This Service pack enhances the following issues

Vibration Analysis UK Version

The documents upon which the Fastrak Building Designer Vibration Analysis was based [SCI Publication P076 Design Guide on the Vibration of Floors, together with the SCI published Advisory Desk Notes AD 253, AD 254 and AD 256] have been withdrawn and in their place the SCI has published a new, revised document P354 Design of Floors for Vibration: A New Approach.

The Fastrak Building Designer Vibration Analysis has been updated to comply with the approach set out in Section 7: Simplified Assessment for Steel Floors of this new publication. The SCI have made these changes to the P076 methodology following measurements taken on hospital, office and residential floors which indicated that in certain circumstances the P076 results were too conservative.

The design procedures adopted by Fastrak Building Designer can be used to calculate the floor acceleration, to weight it to reflect human perception, and to compare the result with the acceptance levels for z-axis vibration in BS 6472 and in the NHS performance standards for hospitals, Health Technical Memorandum 2045.

As part of the upgrade, the opportunity has been taken to improve the Vibration Analysis Wizard. The process by which the beams are selected for analysis has been enhanced and more guidance for the user has been built into the Wizard.

Vibration Analysis US Version

The document upon which the Fastrak Building Designer Vibration Analysis is based is that published by the AISC under the title “Floor Vibrations Due to Human Activity” Steel Design Guide Series #11 (DG11).

The simple design procedures adopted by Fastrak Building Designer can be used to calculate the floor acceleration arising from walking activities and to compare the result with the acceptable values quoted in DG11. When appropriate, for floor systems with natural frequencies greater than 9 or 10 Hz, the floor stiffness is also evaluated.

The user is led through the data collection process by a Design Wizard which, wherever possible will use data obtained directly from the model under analysis. The process culminates with an extensive screen display of the results with the additional facility to export the results in rtf file format.

Building Designer - Simple Beam Cantilevers

Simple Beam Cantilevers

In some instances decomposed loads applied at the end of a simple beam cantilever were not being taken in to account during the design of the beam, but were applied and shown in the Analysis view. This issue did not occur all the time, but was dependent on both the orientation of the beam and the rounding applied to the length of beam. We strongly advise that users check any models which include simple beam cantilevers to ensure this situation has not occurred

Minor Updates

File will not open after Saving

This is caused by creating an inclined plane within the structure and then subsequently deleting the inclined plane from within the tree view without first having closed the inclined plane view before saving.

Crash Generating Post Processing analysis results for structure

Due to a tolerancing issue, in some instances it was possible to obtain a crash generating the post processing graphics.

Design Report not created for Plated General Beam

The design report was not being created for a Plated General beam irrespective of the output level set.

Westok Beam Cell Generation

If the length of the beam changed, the Westok Cells were not being regenerated to take account for the new beam length set.

Composite Beam - Construction Stage - Total Load Deflection Check

When the beam contained web openings and a precamber had been set, the total load deflection value was not taking in to account any precamber that had been set.

Crash completing the Wind Wizard or updating the Wind Zones

In certain circumstances, this occurs where a wall next to a recess is connected to more than one roof item along its top edge.

Crash Exporting to SDNF

A crash occurs when exporting to SDNF, if the model includes Slabs with Fibre reinforcement.

Connections

Simple, Moment, Hollow, Splice and Column Base Connections - Unable to validate licence for this connection type

When using network licensing the software was checking the licence during the design check, the licence remained locked and was not being made available for subsequent reuse.

Simple & Moment Connections - Random crash when editing aspects of the Connection

This was due to a memory corruption of the endplate data.