Space Frame Design

[a.williams17]

Hi,

I am doing my dissertation on space frames and I need to create one in Robot Structural Analysis, any general tips would be greatly appreciated!

[Rafal.Gaweda]

Try:
http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/forums/searchpage/tab/message?filter=labels%2Clocation&location=forum-...

[a.williams17]

From what I see, it isn't possible to design space frame structures with Robot Structural Analysis, is this correct or are there ways?

[StefanoPasquini6790]

Hi,

What kind of space frame do you need and which Analysis type you have to do?

Robot can do many different type of analysis and geometry, it depend about your needed.

Greetings

[a.williams17]

I'm just going to do a simple space frame like this one:

http://www.cowleytimberwork.co.uk/Final%20Images%20GIFs%20only/spaceframe3.jpg

And what basic analysis types can I do?

[StefanoPasquini6790]

Hi a.williams17,

in 2005 I made one of my first space frame design in robot and the result is this:

The space between the RC column is 45 meters in each direction, the global surface of the space frame roof is 112x112 m (only 9 columns). With Robot I've optimized the pipe sections and I've studied the connection plates. I made also a global buckling Analysis. This roof is seismically isolated on the top of the rc columns and it was "tested" during the earthquake of "L'Aquila" in 2009 with excellent results: THE ONLY BUILDING WITH NO DAMAGE IN ITS ZONE.

Well, after my brief description, my answer is absolutely yes.

Good luck and post your model images in the forum.

Greetings

[Artur.Kosakowski]

Great job 

[100283700]

That looks amazing and is exactly what I wanted to do! Do you have any of the files from back then? I don't know how to make pipe sections within Robot, so any tips would be amazing!

[100283700]

So for actually designing the space frame components, would I design it in another software an import it in or is there ways of designing it within Robot?

[a.williams17]

Can the connections be designed in Robot or should these be designed seperately?

[StefanoPasquini6790]

It depend by the connection type, in my case I've studied separately with fem model, loaded by eneloped axial force extracted from the master model.

Greetings

[a.williams17]

To be honest, any connector type will do as long as I keep it constant throughout the optimisation. How would I go about designing the connector?