Hollow Core Checker
Not version-specific
Tekla Structures
Environment
Not environment-specific
1. Purpose and description
Hollow Core Checker is an addition to Tekla Structures extension Model Checker Suite.
Hollow Core Checker adds a check to Model Checker Suite allowing you to perform various checks specific for hollow core slabs. The hollow core slab specific checking includes following checks:
- Minimum and maximum length of slabs
- Minimum end angles of slabs
- Proper width of narrow slabs.
- Minimum number of continuous and solid webs.
- Location and maximum size of openings including checking of allowance of multiple openings inside same section.
- Minimum number of continous webs from end to end.
2. System requirements
Environments: Any (see notes below)
Please note also that you need to have Model Checker Suite installed, otherwise there is no way to start or run the checking.
Hollow Core Checker can be used in any environment, however the configuration of the checking may not be existing and before running the checking you need to setup the configuration as described in paragraph 5.
The installation contains the configuration (file HollowCoreSlabCheckConfig.dat) for Parma slabs working with 'Default' and 'Finnish' environments. For other environments the configuration has to be created separately.
3. Installation
To install the application:
- Download and install first Model Checker Suite.
- Download and install Hollow Core Checker.
4. Usage
- Start Model Checker Suite. For more details see the Model Checker Suite documentation.
- Make sure that option Hollow Core Checker is checked (see Figure 1).
- If you want to review or modify the settings for the check click button . See paragraph 3 for more details about the settings.Image
- If you want to check only certain slabs, select the slabs in model view and click option “Selected” and button “Run checks” or
- If you want to check all slabs in the model click option “All” and click button “Run checks”
- If there was any check failures you can review the details about the failures by clicking the button Image
Please note that if all checks were passed no resolve button will be visible. See paragraph 0 for more details about reviewing the check results.
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Figure 1, Model Checker Suite user interface
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Figure 2, All checks were passed successfully
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Figure 3, Some check failures were identified
4.1. Hollow Core Slab Check Settings
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In this dialog you can control which indicual checks will be performed and which of the slabs will be ignored (=will not be checked). In addition you can open new dialog to review or modify the configurations of slab profile specific check parameters.
| Property / UI Element | Description |
|---|---|
Check openings | Check this option to perform checking of slab openings. |
Check slab lengths | Check this option to perform checking of slab minimum and maximum lengths |
Check end angles | Check this option to perform checking of slab end angles. |
Update check status (UDA) | Check this option when you want to store the check status (OK, Failed or Ignored) and the check date and time for each slab.
The user defined attributes (UDA) used to store the information are:
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Ignored slabs | This list view contains all the slabs which will not be checked. Normally you should only ignore checking of slabs which have been checked manually and verified that the check failures are invalid because of some reasons which are not considered during normal checking. Please note that the selection in the model view and this list are synchronized so that when you select item in the list also the corresponding slab in model view selected and vice versa. |
Zoom to selected slabs | Check this option if you want the model view zoomed to the slab or slabs which are selected in the list ‘Ignored slabs’ |
Clear all | Click this button to clear the list ‘Ignored slabs’ |
Clear selected | Click this button to clear the currently selected slabs/rows from the list ‘Ignored slabs’ |
Add selected | Click this button to add slabs into the list ‘Ignored slabs’ which are selected in the model view but are not yet in the list |
Configure… | Click this button to open the new dialog window containing all the existing slab profile specific check parameters. See paragraph 5 for more details about configurations. Please note that normally you should not need to modify any of the configuration settings as all configurations parameters shall exists in the environment by default. |
Close | Click this button to close the settings dialog |
OK | Click this button to close the settings dialog and apply current settings values to be used in subsequent checks. |
Save/Load/Save as | Use these fields and controls to save or load the current settings. Please note that any of the configuration parameters are not saved nor loaded as they are specific for environment or model and not for any settings. |
4.2. Hollow Core Checker Failures
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In this dialog you can review the detailed information about check failure reasons.
| Property / UI Element | Description |
|---|---|
Checked slabs | This list view contains all the slabs which has been checked or which had some check failures.
In addition to basic slab properties the list contains also info about how many openings the slab contains, how many individual check failures exists in the slab and how many continuous solid webs the slab have.
You can sort the list view by some of the columns by clicking the column header with mouse. By clicking the column again the sort order is reversed.
By selecting one row in the list all the failure details will be listed in list ‘Failure details’ and a preview picture of the slab is shown.
Please note that the selection in the model view and this list are synchronized so that when you select item in the list also the corresponding slab in model view selected and vice versa. |
Show all checked slabs | When this option is checked the list ‘Checked slabs’ shows both the slabs with or without any check failures. |
Zoom to selected slabs | Check this option if you want the model view zoomed to the slab or slabs which are selected in the list ‘Ignored slabs’ |
Ignore in future | If you are sure that the check failure is irrelevant you can click this button to add currently selected slab or slabs into the current list of ignored slabs.
The checking of ignored slabs will be skipped in future and no check failures of these slabs will be reported in future. |
Failure details | This list contains the detailed descriptions of each individual check failure.
The descriptions are self-explanatory and are not explained in details here.
By clicking the row containing a check failure due any of the openings also that opening is highlighted in the preview picture (see Figure 4). |
Preview picture | This picture shows the picture of currently selected (first) slab.
The picture shows the continuous solid webs and broken webs with different color.
Openings are color coded as follows: Green – the opening has passed all checks Red – the opening alone is causing some check failure Yellow – The opening alone is ok but this opening together of some other openings is causing a check failure due combined effects. |
OK | Click this button to close the dialog and confirm the addition of the new slabs (if any) to “ignored in future’ list. |
Close | Click this button to close the dialog. Please note that if you “ignored” any of the slabs the addition of those slabs will be rejected. |
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Figure 4, Preview showing the opening causing the check failure
5. Application properties
Hollow Core Checker functionality is fully depending on the check configuration parameters. Without existings paramters for some hollow core slab profile the check is not possible at all.
In normal situation the configuration parameters shall be existing predefined in the local environment and there shall not be a need to change them in model level. However not all environments will contain settings and therefire there is a user interface making it easy to setup the configuration for first time.
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In this dialog you can review and modify all the check configuration paramters. These parameters are specific for each slab profile and width variation of the slab profile. All parameters shown in three tab pages are specific for currently selected item in list ‘Slab profiles’ and the width variation selected in list ‘Width variations.
5.1. Usage of list ‘Slab profiles’ and ‘Width variations’
With these two lists you are able to control which slab profiles and variations can be checked and what are the specific parameters for each profile and width variation.
| Property / UI Element | Description |
|---|---|
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| In this list you can
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| In this list you can
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5.2. Tab page ‘Lengths and webs’
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| Property | Description |
|---|---|
Min number of solid webs | With this parameter you can set the minimum number of continuous and solid webs. Continuous web is a web which goes from slab end to end and there is no openings breaking the web at any location. |
Min width Max width | These are the minimum and maximum width of the slab.
Please note that each width variation have its own min & max width range. |
Min length | This is the minimum allowed length of the shorter side of the slab. |
Min end angle | This is the minimum angle allowed for the slab with skewed end. |
Web tolerance | This is the tolerance added to the minimum thickness of the web. Any opening closer to web than this tolerance will be considered hitting and breaking the web. |
Max length | This is the maximum allowed length for the slab. Multiple values can be given based on the total number of broken webs. Normally the max length will be smaller when more broken webs exist. |
5.3. Tab page ‘Single opening’
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In this tab page you can set the parameter controlling the checks of individual openings. The properties can be given separately depending on the opening zone and maximum slab length. Above example shows the at ‘End center’ zone a bigger opening is allowed when slab length is 7000 mm or less.
| Property | Description |
|---|---|
Zone | You can set parameters separately in one or more zones. If any of the zones are not specified or the slab is longer than allowed length the opening is not allowed and a check failure will be reported.
The four different zones are visualized in the picture at top of the tab page. |
Max slab length | This parameter specifies the max length of the slab for which the given values are valid.
If more than one set of values is given for some zone the parameter values with shortest length bigger than actual slab length will be used for checking. |
Max length | This is the maximum allowed length of opening. |
Max width | This is the maximum allowed width of opening |
Min distance | This is the minimum required end distance of opening. Min distance can be given only when opening zone is ‘Middle center’ or ‘Middle edge’
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Max length/min distance …
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| With these two settings you can control when the first or last web is considered broken even the opening is not “physically” breaking the web.
If the edge distance of opening is less than the given value (150) and opening length is greater than given value (275) the web is considered broken and is not counted to total number of continuous/solid webs even the web might not be physically broken. |
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5.4. Tab page ‘Combined openings’
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In this tab page you can set the parameters controlling the checking of multiple openings. Slightly different settings are given for checking of “small” and “large” openings. “Small” opening is an opening which is not hitting/breaking any of the webs, otherwise the opening is “large” opening.
| Property | Description |
|---|---|
Max number is openings in same section (1) | This is the absolute max number of allowed openings (small+large) in same section. Openings are considered to locate in “same” section when the distance between openings is less that the given min distance by setting (2) |
Min distance of more openings (2) | This is the min distance between two openings so that openings are not considered to be in “same” section. If there is a set of two or more openings where the distance between two far most openings is less that this minimum distance all the openings in that set are locating in “same” section. |
Max number of broken webs in same section (3) | This is the absolute maximum number of webs allowed to be broken by two or more openings locating in “same” section.
Two or more large openings are considered to be in “same” section when the distance between two far most openings is less than given min distance by setting (4) |
Min distance of larger openings (4) | This is the minimum required distance between two large openings which are together breaking more webs than allowed by the setting (3) |
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5.5. Tab page ‘Ignore Openings’
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In this tab page you can introduce names of the special cut parts. If the opening is created by a cut having any of the names given here the checking of that opening is not performed nor is it considered when checking the combined openings.
The names can be given separately for cuts/openings at end area and center area of the slab.
Please make sure the names given on this tab page are really used only in the intended cases and reasons as this will ignore the checking of the openings and may cause undesired end result if names are commonly used to create typical openings or recesses.
| Property | Description |
|---|---|
At ends of the slab | Give the name or names of cut parts separated by space.
If the opening is created by a cut having any of the names given here and it is located at end area of the slab the checking related to that opening is not done.
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At center area of the slab | Give the name or names of cut parts separated by space.
If the opening is created by a cut having any of the names given here and it is located at center area of the slab the checking related to that opening is not done.
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