Revit app InstaBar | How to place rebars in the foundations & columns? Best practice!

Today we are going to use our Revit plug-in Insta-bar. We are going to place rebars in the foundations & columns. Then we will extract the rebar quantities.

To begin with, I am going to place two foundations, two columns & a beam using InstaCrete. I am going to apply the phase property to the elements. That helps us to extract the quantities according to the schedule.

Now we are ready to place the rebars.

Let us open the dialogue box.

These two text boxes set the cover for the rebars.

Top  & bottom cover.

Look at this diagram. This is the bottom cover.

And this distance is the top cover.

This is the side cover.

Set the bottom cover to 30 & side cover 20.

Steel in “X” direction & steel in “Y” direction.

In this diagram, this is the steel in the “x” direction & this steel in the “Y” direction.

I am going to set the diameter as 16, layout fix & quantity 6.

You can see automatically these boxes are populated with the same value.

Now regarding the rebar shapes.

This straight rebar is shape “M” zero & this bar with hooks on both sides is shape “M” zero two.

For this demonstration, I select this option. Let the hook length be 300

Facebar. What is a face bar?

These are the face bars. Placed on all four sides of the foundation.

I choose 8 as the diameter, distance 125 & two as the numbers of the face bar.

Now, select this box if your design has the top mesh.

You have to input the height of the bottom pedestal in this box.

These are the settings for the top mesh rebars. Quite similar to the bottom mesh.

In case you have a structural steel column, uncheck this box. So that you can place rebars only in the foundations. But, in the case of the reinforced column, you keep this box selected. That means the column starter bars would be placed along with the foundation rebars.

Select a single option. In case if it is a combined footing, that means there are more than one columns on a single footing select the multiple options.

Let us see what happens after we hit the okay button.

InstaBar prompts us to select the foundation. You can see this message on the status bar.

I am selecting this foundation. You can see rebars have been placed.

Now InstaBar prompts us to select the column & then the beam.

In this new dialogue box set the settings for the column starter bars.

If your design has a mix of two diameters, select this option.

For this demonstration, we select this first option.

Set this cover for the column rebars. This is going to remain fixed forever for the project.

Let the number of rebars in the “X” direction be 12. You can see in this graphics window they are distributed as 6 each on the two sides.

Similarly, input 10 as the number of bars in the “Y” direction.

The rule is, Insta-bar will only accept an even number of rebars.

And if you keep these zero values as it is, the column will have four bars.

Now, In this area, set the setting for the column rebars.

Let the diameter be 16, lapping 800.

These are the miscellaneous settings.

This is the stirrup & this is the distance between them.

Only the main stirrup is placed in this region.

This is the hook of the column rebar.

Input 8 & 100 as the stirrup bar diameter & the distance between the stirrups.

Let the hook length be 300.

Hit the okay.

Here you can see the column bars.

Insta-bar prompts us to select the foundation.

As we want to place rebars in this foundation & column,

Select this foundation.

Then select the column & then the beam.

For this second run select this two diameter option.

Select 12 as the diameter of the bar & 600 as the lapping length.

Let the stirrup diameter be 8 & the distance between the stirrup is 100. Hook length is 300.

Now, we will have to select few dots in this graphic. The selected dots will be the rebars of 12 diameters. Select the dots so that symmetry is followed. You can see the selected dots turn into blue colour.

Hit okay.

Hit the escape key. In the dialogue box, click the cancel button. Ignore this message by clicking okay.

Let us check the drawing.

You can see the bars are placed in a staggered position.

See the lapping 600 for 12 diameter bars & 800 for 16-millimetre diameter rebar.

In this plan view, you can see rebar of 16 & 12 millimetres.

Finally, we will see this Rebar Quantity tool.

Decide the folder in which you want to place this file.

Name the file. Hit the save button.

Hit okay.

Let us check this Excel file.

In the foundation steel tab, you will see all the rebars present in the foundation.

F & S determines foundation steel. These are segregated according to the mark. So, this is the steel in the A1 foundation. The phase is January.

And this is the steel in the A2 foundation. The phase is February.

In the column steel tab, we will have rebar quantities present in the column.

C & S determines column steel. These are segregated according to the mark. So, this is the steel in the A1 Column. The phase is January.

And this is the steel in the A2 foundation. The phase is February.

This way we get steel quantity present in the Fundations & columns.