Greetings dear fellows engineers! Did you know that Graitec BIM Designer Series has been split into two packages? Starting with 2018 release, the Advance BIM Designer are grouped under two series to meet the specific needs of each industry sector: Concrete Series and Steel Series. Also, the Steel Series contains the following modules: Stair & Railing Designer, Steel Connection Designer and Structure Designer.

Today, we going to focus on Steel Connection Designer*. Part of Graitec BIM Designer, the package ensures the configuration of a seamless solution, with the ability to manage and calculate bolted and welded joints, and with fully detailed design reports that include the calculation formulas and reference to the design code. The software design steel connections to Euro Codes, directly in Advance Design or as a standalone solution.

Quick and easy design of a variety of steel connections. With the Steel Connections Designer, it is possible to design:

• moment connections (connects a beam to a column)

Regardless of type of the connection, you can customize each joint element using the available buttons from the Joint Elements panel. All changes made in every window can be viewed in real time.

Insight: In case of a moment connection, you can choose from four type of middle column stiffeners available in a drop-down list: Normal Column Stiffeners, Morris Stiffeners, Sloped Stiffeners, and Web Doubler.

• apex connections (connects two beams)

Insight: The Plates dialog of an apex haunch connection allows users to configure the right end plate and the left end plate.

• base plate connections (welding a steel plate to the bottom end of the column, which is in turn connected to the foundations through anchors)

Insight: The shear lug is an important base plate joint element that can transfer entirely the shear force to the foundation. In the corresponding report, an entire verification chapter is assign for the shear lug calculation, including the slenderness and geometry verification. Joint connectors (anchors) can be customized by changing the available option: anchors definition, positioning, holes and plates type.

• Gusset connections (connects bracing members using gusset plates)

Insight: You can obtain a welded connection by simply disabling the bolts. There is possible to weld the end plate and main beam, gusset plate and the diagonals and gusset plate and main beam flange.

• clip angle connections (used for connecting a floor beam to another beam, or a column to a beam)

Insight: The attached beam can be sloped to the main one. The angles are bolted or welded to the main beam.

• gable wall end plate connections (used to connect a continuous beam to the top of the column.

Insight: Similar to Moment end plate joint, additional elements are available to customize this connection (i.e. plates, stiffeners, welds).

• Splice connections (often used to assure continuity for structural members (beams or columns) along their length)

Insight: The splice plates can be bolted or welded to the main members.

Regardless of the type of connections, you can design to various country codes with design reports, drawings and utilization rates and have them graphically displayed. Also, you can automatically run reports for all the verifications. Of course, all parameters of the connections can be modified – stiffeners, anchors, bolts, welds and the thickness, width and height of the base plate.

Of course, these functions are just a bit of the Steel Connection Designer flavor’s. You can dive deeper into those options through visiting Steel Connection designer page and discover all the amazing things that you can do with our software.

*Advance BIM Designer Steel Connection is a module available in Advance Design Premium, Advance Design Professional and in some of our local producs.