topic Re: Calculating Secant Pile Area/Volume in Revit Structure Forum

Calculating Secant Pile Area/Volume

dan.glenister — Wed, 25 Jan 2023 16:58:40 GMT

Hi All,

I'm having trouble trying to get the area of pile overlap in a secant pile wall. We have calculated that the formula for the overlapping area of 2 circles should be something like the below:

(2 * (Secant_PileRadius ^ 2) * Acos(Secant_PileCrs / (2 * Secant_PileRadius))) - (Secant_PileCrs * sqrt((Secant_PileRadius ^ 2) - ((Secant_PileCrs ^ 2) / 4)))

Note: Red = our parameter names

This is the formula we are trying to use in an 'Area' parameter and it keeps giving us the inconsistent units error. We suspect this is due to the Acos function returning an answer which in essence is an angle, which we are then trying to multiply by an area. We have tried separating the Acos calc into another parameter and then use the answer from that parameter in our formula, but this still returns the same error

To give some background to the this, the reason for this calculation is to calculate the volume of concrete in the Primary/Female pile, which will vary based on the Pile Centers. So we are trying to use the formula above to work out the area of 'sacrificial' concrete when the Secondary/Male piles are installed, which we will subtract from the area and then multiply by the depth to give us the total remaining volume

Re: Calculating Secant Pile Area/Volume

gevanKGYB4 — Wed, 25 Jan 2023 20:16:34 GMT

I can't really help you with the trig functions in the family parameter since I don't know. This is only to help you in your secant pile concrete volume consideration.

If you are looking for the TOTAL concrete volume used for the secant pile job, I assume. Then you will need to consider both primary and secondary piles separately. This is because both piles will be installed at different times. The first pile is going to be the full circle while second pile is also going to be the full circle. The second pile will be taking out the part of circle in question while it is being installed. So unless the volume shown right now is a 2-circle-combined volume, it should be showing the right volume.

Re: Calculating Secant Pile Area/Volume

EdwinG — Thu, 26 Jan 2023 08:43:53 GMT

try to make all your parameter unitless and set the type of the parameter to number.

Unitless for angle is to divide to 1°--> (angle /1°)

unitless for area( cm²) --> (area / 10mm / 10mm) *100 is area in mm²

Re: Calculating Secant Pile Area/Volume

EdwinG — Thu, 26 Jan 2023 09:31:37 GMT

It would look something like this. Green are numbers

Re: Calculating Secant Pile Area/Volume

dan.glenister — Thu, 26 Jan 2023 15:13:35 GMT

Thanks a lot for your help, The formulas work a treat!