AC20 (USA) Assign Smoke Barriers and Partitions?

[matjashka]

Hi all,

Many of you are well aware that in the US the building codes not only specify fire rating but also define Smoke Barriers and Smoke Partitions -- basically walls that will stop smoke from spreading, but with or without fire rating. It is essential to communicate their presence to our MEP consultants who need to pay extra attention to fire damper placement. Turns out, ArchiCAD version twenty has no method of communicating those two types of fire prevention.

There is no such IFC property and while I may create a custom one in my IFC scheme, I'm aware that it may be lost in translation.

I also tried to automate the process to communicate that graphically in our construction documents with Graphic Overrides (GOs), but failed. I'm struggling with usefulness of GOs in ArchiCAD 20, mainly because the set of Criteria is very limited (that may be by choice or by computer code limitations, I don't know).

I may be forced to do it the old way -- by using lines and polylines. I seriously doubt that this is something to be proud of in the BIM era.

Could you please share how you deal with the problem? Thanks much!

[Richard Morrison]

Make friends with the property manager and use that to help assign fire-ratings to walls. (http://helpcenter.graphisoft.com/guides/archicad-20/archicad-20-reference-guide/elements_of_the_virt... ) Then you can use graphic overrides, using the property manager definitions, to define your fire-rating plan. http://helpcenter.graphisoft.com/guides/archicad-20/archicad-20-reference-guide/views_of_the_virtual...

BTW, if you are using a project file from before AC20, you can open the AC20 template and export the property manager settings from there and then import into your current file, if you need or want an already set up file with defined properties.

[matjashka]

Hi Richard,

I appreciate your response but you did not address my core question.

I'm already using the IFC Property Manager, including a number of custom properties that help me with scheduling. Those custom IFC properties may not translate into other programs like Revit, but I digress.
I've also created Graphic Overrides to differentiate by fire rating but my smoke separation still cannot be addressed.

Graphic Override criteria allow me to filter by Composite or Material but there is no way I will create duplicate wall composites with different names just to address this simple problem: tagging a wall as smoke partition/barrier. Custom attributes cannot be used as criteria, not in version 20 at least.

Also, I want to point out that Zones can be grouped into separate Smoke Zones and I will incorporate that approach in my BIM model and CDs; however, it does not change the fact that both my engineer and building inspector/reviewer will ask me to clearly higlight the walls that are smoke barriers/partitions.

[Richard Morrison]

Matt,
I did answer your core question, but you are making assumptions without bothering to take the time to learn about these new AC20 tools you have, which are extremely powerful.

IFC properties are COMPLETELY DIFFERENT from the properties created by the Property Manager. Properties created by the new Property Manager will feed into the graphic override process very nicely. (IFC properties do not.) If you set up the fire-rating and/or smoke separation Properties as Options (say, 1-hour, 2-hour, etc.) they will be drop-downs that can be selected and applied to the same type of wall. This is a simple tagging process and there is no need to create diffferent composites. The same wall type can be tagged as 30-minute, one-hour, or whatever, and each will display differently in plan if you have set the graphic overrides that way. Also, you can tag a wall as a fire-rated wall, as well as a smoke barrier wall, and have a separate plan for both fire and smoke separation barriers, if you wish.

The new property manager scheme also makes it quite easy to schedule virtually anything. I encourage you to learn about this new tool.

EDIT: BTW, if you are an ArchiPlus subscriber, the recent October webinar (which is viewable on-demand) was on using the new Property Manager, and was pretty good.

[matjashka]

Richard,

Yes, I can see that you're absolutely correct and I took a mental shortcut and failed to connect the dots.

I did in fact use that tool for another project, to create drop-downs for certain properties. Back then I was convinced that I was actually editing a section of IFC scheme and my subsequent confusion stemmed from that, I guess.

Thank you again for your valuable input.