Revit Extention InstaBar - How to add same & reduced dia. bars to the column?

Ultimately, what a structural designer aims? He aims to put certain kilos of steel into the concrete structure to counter the load.

The column tool In the Revit plug-in Insta-Bar exactly does that.

This tool has a set of 10 sub tools. Using these tools, the structural designer can achieve the desired strength for the column.

Today we are going to see the working of the first two tools.

The first tool is same size, same number of bars, same diameter.

And the second tool is same size, same number of bars, reduced diameter.

The question is, in what circumstances the structural engineer should use these tools?

The designer should use the first tool when he has decided to have,

– the same size,  the same number of bars, & the same diameter bars for the top & bottom columns.

Let us open the tool.

Select the top column & beam.

Then select the bottom column & beam.

In this box you can see, details of the rebars present in the bottom column.

In this case, the bottom column has rebar of 16 millimetres. And has 12 rebars in the “X” direction & 10 in the “Y” direction. The lap length is 800.

The top column will have the same rebars.

Click this arrow. In this graphics window, you can see the rebar arrangement. It also shows the stirrups arrangement.

When you add the top bars they are attached to the bottom bars with the lapping. Crank length is provided by this joint.

You can calculate the crank length according to your code. Put that value into this box.

For this demonstration, I input the crank length as 200.

The user can arrange stirrups in two ways. As you can see, in this diagram all the stirrups are placed at equal distance. In this diagram, you can see stirrups are arranged in a staggered manner.

Additional main stirrups are provided in the join between the column & beam. These are placed at 150 same distance as this G2 group.

Set the stirrup diameter 8

Select non-uniform for the stirrup arrangement.

The stirrup distance for group 1 is 100.

The number of stirrups for group 1 is 8.

The stirrup distance for the G2 group is 175.

Hit the okay key.

You can see the rebars.

Now we will use the second tool.

The second tool is same size, same number of bars, reduced diameter.

The designer should use the second tool when he has decided to have,

– the same size,  the same number of bars, & the reduced diameter bars for the top column.

Let us open the tool.

Select the top column & beam.

Then select the bottom column & beam.

In this box you can see, details of the rebars present in the bottom column.

Now, let us input values for the top column rebars.

Select diameter as 12.

Lap length as 600.

Click this arrow. In this graphics window, you can see the rebar arrangement. It also shows the stirrups arrangement.

Input the crank length as 200.

Set the stirrup diameter 8

Select non-uniform for the stirrup arrangement.

The stirrup distance for group 1 is 100.

The number of stirrups for group 1 is 8.

The stirrup distance for the G2 group is 175.

Hit the okay key.

You can see the rebars.

Press the escape key. Ignore this message. Hit the okay.

Let us check the rebars, lapping & stirrups.

We can see the same diameter rebars & Lapping is 800.

We have reduced the diameter to 12. Lapping is 800. And here the lapping is 600.

These stirrups are decided by Insta-Bar.

It will place a major stirrup. The minor stirrup will involve two vertical rebars as shown in this diagram.

On this side of the column, there are 5 bars.

Insta-bar will place minor stirrup involving 3 rebars as shown in this diagram.