Composite wall junctions in year 2022 and their inherited problems

[ArchiMind]

Hello everybody,

My question and concern are that in the year 2022 composite wall and their junctions seems to be complicated, and often needs a lot of workarounds to achieve correct graphical representation.

To be precise, many T junctions are needed to be patched with complex columns, and  my opinion is, that in big designs this can become a potentially big potential problem.

Presenting this problem, I seek advice or strategies on how do you solve this problem of composite wall and their junction.

Chers,

Stefan

[Mahmoud Qenawi]

Hi @henryL , I see the upper wall extension has a reference line different from the lower part of the wall if you can continue with the same profile to above and I really see that RC wall should continue and not to be splitted by insulation only if the design require, if you can explain the logic behind?

[Barry Kelly · Accepted solution]

Very tricky situation as you have 4 wall all trying to interact with each other.

Each wall will interact with one other wall automatically - so two walls no problem.

Bring in a third wall and it will want to interact with one of the other walls - but can't with both.

The junction order will help you to decide which wall interact with which other wall.

Bring in a fourth wall and you will have a bigger problem as you may get the 3 walls to trim happily, but now each wall needs to trim differently to 2 other adjacent walls.

The junction order will help fix one connection but will then break another.

I can get close by playing around with the location of the reference lines and not using junction order at all.

But it is still not perfect.

I think 4 walls that are all different composites meeting at the same point is just too much and a complex profile column is the best option.

There is also the "Create patch object" (search for that in the reference guide) which will create a 2D object overlay that you can open and edit the 2D symbol.

That is what we had to do before we had complex profile columns.

Barry.

[Mahmoud Qenawi]

Hi @DGSketcher , We all notice Archicad challenges but there’s no BIM software is perfect all the way as I see so let’s try to help Archicad gets better and to get out the most of it and share our thoughts to help Graphisoft team.

[ArchiMind]

Hello @Barry Kelly ,

 As I mentioned, this is not that much problem in small designs, but I can't simply wrap my mind that in design for example 35 000m2 I have to do each kind of junction with a complex profile column. Its a big possibility for human error. Many in the company that I work for are still at the novice level.

Still, I appreciate provided information.

Cheers,

Stefan

[Barry Kelly]

If you want the insulation to automatically cut the concrete, the the Building Material strength of your insulation needs to be stronger than the concrete.

Or you can break the length of the left (vertical) wall and stop the top at the outside of the insulation you have drawn in orange.

Make sure the door with the wall and the horizontal wall then form an "L" connection.

The top part of the vertical wall just butts up to the horizontal wall - you may have to control the connection so that doesn't try to automatically trim with the other walls.

Barry.

[DGSketcher]

@ArchiMind Expectation is the key word here. I am sure from your history that you will appreciate how far we have come from drawing wall skins in Autocad with 2D line offsets. The problem faced by the Developers is HUGE when you consider connecting composite skins. As @Barry Kelly has indicated we used to work with 2D patches, but at least we can now work with 3D complex columns which was a huge step forward. There is a work around where you can draw each skin as separate elements, admittedly it can be a lot more work but it would be a true digital twin. Perhaps at some point we will see composite walls with the ability to adjust skin lengths but these things take time to develop.

Sorry if my response caused offence, I have my own frustrations with AC just now, they stem more from basic failures rather than disappointment with future wishes.

[ArchiMind]

@DGSketcher I am not offended, we are making constructive talk. 🙂

As for expectation, I think it is a normal thing, especially when they market it like that. 🙂

I appreciate that things are going better direction, and I understand that there is huge pressure on the developers, but as I mentioned wall is an essential tool, and it needs to be more thought through. Maybe also slab, but that is a story for another time.

Cheers