Forums >> Revit Structure >> Technical Support >> Joining isolated foundations to concrete beams - 2009

kiffer

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Joined: Fri, May 9, 2008
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Hi

I've been lurking in the background on this forum but this is my first post, and i'm wondering if anyone can help me on a problem i have with the revit model i'm working on.

The structure is a concrete framed building, built on piled foundations. We have families set up for each pile cap type, and spanning between the pile caps we have ground beams to support the external masonry structure. The ground beams have been created using structural beam function.

The problem i'm having is that the caps/beams seem to join fine, and then one minute I start getting a warning (totally out of the blue) that says 'element could not be cut by joined element'. The beam and pile cap then no longer join properly.

The only way I've found to get round this is to change the materials of the footing to a different type of concrete. Whilst this is a pain it does fix the problem temporarily, only to find later that the same thing keeps happening. I'm starting to run out of concrete materails to use! and bviously this is extremely time consuming.

Can anyone help? This is starting to drive me nuts....

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FJ22

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Joined: Thu, Nov 13, 2008
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In my opinion the material of the beam and isolated foundation should be the same! Otherwise it's not going to join properly. I understand that's the way you started it and I think it's the only right way.

But why it's doesn't join properly right now, it beats me as well.

Can you attach some images (plan, section) of what you made so far?

By the way, I think that this is why at our company we draw the beams as walls because walls are joining much more friendly.

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kiffer

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Hi thanks for the reply.

Yes I agree - they should be the same material - if they're different you will be able to join them but the will appear to butt against each other. The problem i'm having is that they seem to just run straight through each other. Once this has happened there is no way of getting them to join properly again apart from changing the material of both the pile cap and the beam to another concrtete material.

See attached - the P2 foundation (pad foundation) is doing the same as the pile caps. The broken line of the pad is not a hidden linetype - this is another 'symptom' of the problem - it is where the ground beam joined on a similar pad (I have no idea why this particular foundation is doing this). It then replicates this 'break' in the line on every single 'P2' foundation I have!

I seem to be the only person suffering this problem, i've done many google searches for solutions to similar problems and found nothing.

One thing I suspect to be the root of the problem is that the company I work for has a central revit library stored on a server that all users access - I have a feeling our helpful software team may have fiddle with some families in the library. 

Perhaps using walls to create the beams is the best long term solution - as you suggest - only problem is i'll then have to replace every beam - there's rather a lot of them!

Arrrrghhhhhhhhhh

Thanks

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kiffer

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FJ22

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Have you tried to download a isolated foundation or beam from another library on the internet? This way you can see if your company's library is messed up. Otherwise I don't know any solution for this problem.

 Good luck with it.

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