Simulate Early, Simulate Often... In Rhino
Multiple Materials
I would like to use scan and solve to do conceptual analysis of bridge structures. I would like to test a variety of cable stayed, inclined arch, stress ribbon, arch suspended deck bridge structures utilizing steel box girder decks or postentioned precast concrete deck panels. Is it possible to utilize more than one material (i.e. steel cables or tendons and concrete) for an analysis?
If scan and solve is not an appropriate avenue for this type of work, do you have a recommendation for other types of (affordable) 3D software?
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Permalink Reply by Jon Mirtschin on
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Hi Eric,
Scan and Solve seems well suited to FEA of solids, typically Bridges are analyzed primarily as frame models. Do you already use any Structural Analysis packages in your work?
At Geometry Gym, I've taken a different approach and not tried to implement a solver within Rhino/Grasshopper (when you try managing multiple load cases and various aspects it starts becoming complex), but instead provide tools to generate the Structural Model data in these powerful environments.
I'll shortly receive consent from some of the commercial users to publish their (very impressive) designs with these tools, they are very well suited to bridges and stadia. Until then, I have published a number of examples to my blog, http://geometrygym.blogspot.com including the sample project above exporting Grasshopper to Robot. The blog includes the models to download and try yourself.
You can learn more about the tools here http://www.geometrygym.com/summary, and there instructions for getting started here http://www.grasshopper3d.com/group/geometrygym/forum/topics/install....
Cheers,
Jon
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Permalink Reply by Eric Birkhauser on
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Hi Jon,
I appreciate your thoughtful resonse. I have used Multiframe to do basic analysis of frame structures, but the software seems cumbersome and innacurate. Do you have any reccomendations for other frame based analysis software where 3D dwg files are easily to upload? Being an architect wishing to obtain a basic conceptual understanding of forces, I am trying to avoid expensive and complicated engineering programs.
Thank you for sharing your blog, I am very impressed, I will be going over your work in the next few weeks. Yes I would love to see some of the applications of commercial users when you obtain permission. My experience with grasshopper has been limited to only a few tutorials, so it more than likely will be a slow process, but nonetheless thank you for the suggestion. I will keep you updated with my progress!
Thanks,
Eric
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