ADVANCE STEEL USER’S GUIDE
Views on the model When working in 3D it is useful to view the model from different directions. The standard view directions can be selected from the Viewpoints panel of the View tab. It should be noted that these tools create views on the entire depth on the model and are not clipped to a specific plane. For more advanced view creation, refer to the Working methods II chapter.
Figure 124: Standard views on the Viewpoints panel
Structural elements Structural elements are grouped objects that consist of basic objects such as beams and other associated features such as shortenings. These are held together and represented by a white structural frame shown as a continuous line. Structural elements of different shapes are on the Structural Elements panel of the Advance Extended modeling tab.
Figure 125: Structural Elements panel
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Symmetrical flat frames and portal frames
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Single-span bracings
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Purlins
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Pylons
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Joists
The basic objects, from which structural elements are created, have a Model Role within the structure that determines their behavior. Basic objects with identical Model Roles are changed together (e.g., if a purlin size is changed, all purlins in the structural element will change to the same size). Exploding the structural element allows changes to individual members. The creation dialog box is specific to the structural element type. For structural elements there is only one representation type; they differ in the type and number of the snaps and grips, which are used to change the geometry (e.g., height, width, etc.). Structural elements are created in the X/Y-plane of the current user coordinate system hence the first step for creating a structural element is to set a correct UCS. The gray structural frame bounding box calls the properties dialog box. If beams of a structural element are to be changed, the corresponding beams must be selected. The “Select” tool on the Joint utilities panel looks for all elements belonging to a structural frame or connection objects to copy, rotate, or mirror individual structural elements. Some of the structural elements use the connection object technology: joists, purlins, and portal frames. The connection object is represented as a gray box (3D bounding box). 80