ETABS and Revit Structure 1

[dollarbulldog]

Dear

Does anybody have experience in using Revit Structure for the real building design project? What is your suggestion for the benefit of using Revit other than using ETABS alone? It seems to make the story more complicate and finally require skillful person to operate Revit than ETABS, isn't it?

Thank you

 

[structuresguy]

I'm not quite sure what you are looking for, but Revit Structure is a 3D strutural drafting utility, while Etabs is a full structural analysis utility. They are not competing with each other. While Revit has some built-in basic analysis capabilities (if the Revit Extensions are installed), they are not useful for actual design.

We use Revit Structure for all new projects in our office now, instead of using AutoCad. We can export the 3D model that we create in Revit to Etabs. This saves us the time required to create a 2nd model (1st one in Revit) in Etabs. We can also export our 3D from Revit into Ram Structural System, Staad, or Adapt, as desired to perform the analysis.

 

[Skicat]

structuresguy,
We use Etabs as well and are beginning to use Revit also. Are you satisfied with the link between Etabs and Revit? I've been hesitant so far to transfer data between the two. Thanks for your input.

 

[structuresguy]

So far, the link seems to work very well. I have tested it even with loads and load combos defined in Revit, adn they transfer through to etabs correctly. I have not tried going from Etabs back into Revit though.

One of the downsides is you can't define an autoselect list in Revit. So it comes to etabs as a unique shape. You would then have to manually revise the shape during your design in Etabs. And then either manually change it in Reivt, or try the Etabs to Revit link.

One thing I found that is weird in Etabs is columns get inserted at the middle of front face, not centerline of column. But apparently (according to email from Etabs tech support) this is only a graphical representation, and does not affect the analysis at all. At it is easy to fix, just select columns and change insertion point to centerline.

One thing I found is it is critical in Revit to ensure you have a good analytical model. Any busts in the analytical model will be busts in revit. And make sure your beam analytical line intersects columns at the same point as bracing lines. Depending on how you model the beams and braces, it is possible to get the beam line coming in at actual beam centerline, but the brace coming in at top of revit level. This would then cause an eccentricity in the connection, which would affect the analysis.