Group or not to group, that is the question
When you are designing a building with shear or moment connections, having the option to group them so you can design only the reference connection is a must. The biggest requirement is to have these everyday connections designed quickly and easily.
However, this approach might lead to inefficient, overdesigned connections, because the loads can vary level by level or frame by frame. Just imagine the economic impact of decreasing 1/16" in welding or eliminating a row of bolts from a group of 20 or 50 connections.
That doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to design the connections one by one. On the contrary, designing connections for their actual loads and in groups is a game changer.
Checkbot – the bridge between your tools
Checkbot is an IDEA StatiCa application that allows users to collaborate with multiple other applications. There are more than 25 software integrated with Checkbot currently – the top five most used applications are SAP 2000, RAM Structural System, STAAD.Pro, Tekla Structures, and ETABS.
Checkbot is a translator that helps us to bring information from the analysis or BIM model into the IDEA StatiCa environment. It manages your BIM workflows – importing and synchronizing connections and members.
In past, the nodes were imported and added to a general list of joints. Later, you needed to open each joint, design a connection for it, and run the analysis for the selected critical loads. If the designed connection had the same configuration in another location, the recommended workflow was to use the Connection Library to publish, re-apply, and design, but this was still too time-consuming.
For us, it is important to help users be more productive by avoiding manual and repetitive tasks. That is why, Checkbot now enables you now to group and bulk design connections.
The process is pretty straightforward: