First Steps!

[chrisbyatt]

Evening all,

I am still very new to this program and am a student at University, for my final year project I have been tasked with designing a truss type footbridge. Instead of a standard Warren truss arrangement I have designed a complex lattice truss bridge such as Harthill Footbridge in Scotland. 

I have created the bridge in AutoCAD with no problems by estimating member sizes, I am now using ROBOT to try to model the bridge and see if it works and will stand up! 

Because the members are curved I have split them up into 20 straight segments, I have successfully created this in ROBOT, and applied members to the bars I have created but I need some help in what to do next, I also have a number of general questions....

Do i need to connect the bars somehow to create single members?

What do I do about where the truss members cross each other?

How do I create connections between the CHS truss members and the two main CHS beams?

Sorry for all of the questions - any help would be greatly appreciated! I have had to ZIP the file due to size (5.6MB)

Thanks

[Rafal.Gaweda]

Do i need to connect the bars somehow to create single members?

Example:

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/Robot-Structural-Analysis/edit-substructure-modification/m-p/4854175#M...

[Rafal.Gaweda]

What do I do about where the truss members cross each other?

The structure can not be set as 3D Truss, change it to 3D frame and assing truss bars properties and \ or releases on bars.

 Bars 5to184  for sure can not be truss bars

Try to avoid short elements like bar 2

Connect properly wall bars - I do not see any connection between arcs in two directions

How do I create connections between the CHS truss members and the two main CHS beams?

What do you mean by that?

They are connected in nodes - it is OK.