Curb return profiles not working

[Anonymous]

Hi,

I have an intersection in the middle of a curve on the main road. There are two alignments, one for the main road, and one for the secondary road. I have created offset alignments for both and also a profile for each offset. Then I created an intersection with two quadrants. One has a fillet with a 6 m radius, and another is a 15 m radius.

On paper, everything seems like it should be working fine, but when I created a corridor my curb return profiles (baselines) are at 0 elevation. When I try to draw a profile view of a curb return it shows nothing, there is no layout, height is 0.

I tried doing the same thing with connected alignments, but the result was completely the same, profile height is at 0 m, when it should be at approximately 85-86 m.

What am I doing wrong? Is there a step in the process that I skipped?

I'm attaching a link to my google drive where I uploaded some screenshots of the problem, unfortunately I can't share the drawing, but if some other screenshots are necessary, I can snap them and upload.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/18UOy8rzCKcCsTR-PUZUGtXQ38aMeP6DF?usp=sharing

[Apex-Solutions]

Hello @Anonymous 

I am curios to see how your corridor parameters looks like and also how the corridor regions have been defined.

Are you able to share a snapshot of your design for the regions as shown on this image and also for the curb return fillets?

 

[Anonymous]

@Apex-Solutions I'm out of office for the rest of the day so I can take a snapshot tomorrow. But, I can try and explain it.

Primary road has a region from the beginning (north) to the start of the NW curb return. Centerline alignment is the baseline and the subasembly targets the offset alignments on both sides. The same applies for the primary road after the intersection and the secondary road from the west to the intersection.

Then in the intersection I used the curb return alignments as the baselines and my subassemblies are targeting the centerline alignments of the both primary and secondary road. As far as the left lane of the primary road is concerned within the intersection, I just used the centerline of the primary road as the baseline and targeted the left offset alignment. 

Basically, to my understanding all the regions and targets and subassemblies are okay, I just cant figure out why Civil refuses to calculate the profile of the curb returns. And as I mentioned, I tried using the connected alignment option, but Civil just does not generate that dynamic profile for it.

[Apex-Solutions]

@Anonymous 

Everything that you mentioned seems fine and should work as expected. 

I am curios about the corridor properties since your intersection has been created with the "Primary Road Crown Maintained" but the model suggests otherwise. This would mean that either there was some sort of corruption in the process or manual edits after the intersection wizard created all the alignments etc.  

Did you at some point have the intersection working and then manually delete items?

[Anonymous]

@Apex-Solutions 

I just created a blank drawing to try and see what would happen if I start everything from scratch. I just created a surface, two alignments, two profiles, defined offset alignments and their profiles and then tried creating a connected alignment and it works. Intersection also works. So here is what I'm thinking could be the issue, I just don't see why and how to fix it if I'm right.

Could it be because of the superelevation data?

In the original drawing I have the superelevation data for my primary road. I copied that data on to the offset profile so the two would match. You can see the right offset profile on the profile view (dashed orange line). In this new test drawing there is no SE data, I just created offset profiles for both roads and defined them as -2% crossfall from the centerline. Could it be that somehow my SE data is messing with the elevations of the intersection/connected alignment?

[Anonymous]

@Apex-Solutions  and to answer your question, no, the intersection didn't work from start.

[Apex-Solutions]

@Anonymous 

I think it is important to note that the intersection wizard is just a routine or set of commands.  They work brilliantly but only if certain conditions are met.  It is possible that because you defined new parameters to your design it falls outside those conditions and then subsequently is not able to create the intersection. 

I have experienced something similar to this where Civil 3D refused to create a profile for the curb return, the reason for this is that there was a vertical curve at the point of the intersection.   The curve had to be deleted in order for the intersection to generate successfully.  I have tried recreating this again today but the intersection was generated successfully.  

Unfortunately we are unable to really know what happened without the original drawing that contains the issue.

I can make the following suggestion:

• Manually define the curb return profile
• Create data shortcuts for your design and test if the intersection can be successfully generated.

[Anonymous]

@Apex-Solutions  it seems that the problem was/is Civil. While I was playing around with the new blank drawing and testing stuff out, it decided to crash. So I restarted it and loaded my design and now the intersection works. Well, it doesn't really work, but it's not at zero elevation anymore. Seems the problem is somehow connected to the profile of the secondary road, probably the same situation as you mentioned. 

The new problem now is that I cant do anything with the secondary road profile. As soon as I try to do anything with it, Civil crashes. In the attached picture my corridor is shown.

Do you maybe think that I can fix the situation if I target the primary road center line profile with my subassembly? I need to maintain the primary road slope at a 7%.

[Apex-Solutions]

@Anonymous

That is how the intersection would be targeted anyway.  What is concerning is that your secondary profile does not math the primary at the intersection point.  If you target the primary profile with your sub assembly its not going to fix the issue with the secondary profile.

[Apex-Solutions]

@Anonymous 

It is clear that there is definitely some corruption in the drawing.  Every other issue you will get from here is going to be compounded.

The best advice at this point is to restart the design on a new drawing. 

[Anonymous]

@Apex-Solutions  yeah, it must have been some serious corruption in the drawing. But I didn't want to start everything from zero so I risked it. Deleted the intersection and tried creating connected alignments and it worked. Tweaked the secondary road profile a bit more, adjusted all the targets and now it looks fine. Thanks for all the insights!