Structural columns + Structural Beam (Mitered) Issues

[michaelV2GZM]

Hi Folks .... I have been getting frustrated by this for some time, so thought it worth asking for advice. (Revit 2022 full and up to date).

Situation - Using structural beams to form up the perimeter of lets say a flat roof situation. Its easy enough to do the beam / column join tool to produce a clean miter cut. This issue I have, is as soon as a structural column is introduced under the beams (at the corner) it over rides the miter cut, as I assume it is joining to one of the beams. 

The image below shows the beams being successfully mitered with the column off to the side (still in beam join edit mode).

 

Once the column is positioned under the beams (on the corner), it breaks the miter. You can see the corner of the column where the miter joint would be.

Even if the column is stopped short of the beams, it still breaks the miter.

Move the column away again, the beams are no longer joined, but can be mitered again. I have tried with the beams being bottom or top justified in the "Z" direction and the same issue occurs.

I have done a search and found others with the same issue, but no resolution that seems to solve the issue.

This is exactly the same problem from 6 years ago:

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/revit-architecture-forum/unjoining-a-structural-column/m-p/6610015#M1...

As per the user in the above thread, in the past I have cut the miter on the beams with reference planes, but they is painful if the beams move, and even more so when there is a Revit function to do the task.

Cheers. 

[MichaelOrtmann]

I can't replicate your problem exactly - if I set the column to the exact height under the beams, the miter stays intact. However, if the column was entered to tall initially, I would have move it a bit down from the beams, and redo the miter, then set the column height to where it should be. The problem is that Revit autojoins the beams to the column, with no way to remove that connection without moving the column.

Modeling the columns a bit shorter and then using Attach Top/Base to the beams works for me as well, maybe it does for you too?

[barthbradley]

Miter the corners using the Ref. Plane approach.

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/revit/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2019/ENU/Revit-M...

[michaelV2GZM]

Thanks for the replies.

Whilst I haven't yet worked out how to imbed a screencast, I have at least been able to record one and upload it at the following link (hopefully). Perhaps I should have put my properties bar off to the right!

Screencast 

ToanDN - I have tried to follow your screencast in the one I have uploaded. The main difference is that unlike yours, my column is automatically joined to the beam on the left. At the start you can see that I disallow join for both the beams before attempting to miter with the "Beams/Column Join" tool, it will not allow the beams to be selected as one is still joined to the column. If I lower the top of the column by 50mm it breaks the connection to the beam which allows the two beams to miter. As soon as the column offset is reduced (anywhere from -50mm to 0mm) it connects again to the beam on the left and breaks the miter between the two beams. 

MichaelOrtmann - Unfortunately no success. If the column is any closer than 50mm below the beam. If I try to attach the column to the base of the beam (attach top/base) from a distance greater than 50mm I get the following error "The column and target are joined. The attachment has been removed", the attachment being removed is the miter joint between the beams.

barthbradley - Thanks. The trimming to a reference plane is a work around I have used in the past. Gets the job done, but not great if things are still being tweaked along the way and you end up with a heap of reference planes if you are trimming multiple beams. Revit seems to have the tools to do it better, but I cannot get it to function reliably. 

It might also be worth noting that I am using the Australian structural library (downloaded from Autodesk). Not sure if something in these families is influencing how the beams and columns act.

Cheers

[aashford3Q2J4X]

Check out my reply to a similar thread here.

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/revit-structure-forum/join-beam-columns-tool-not-showing-arrows/m-p/8...