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Introduction

Why Automate?

Autodesk® Structural Bridge Design (ASBD) is powerful software, but its use can involve repetitive manual tasks via the user interface. Some organizations have their own automation processes to increase efficiency and productivity. These systems can connect to the ASBD data to run various analysis and code checking tasks. Simple scripts can produce text-based data entirely or modify existing data, and then automate.

For example, a text-based data file can contain all the material properties and section definition parameters with associated loading. This file can then be passed to ASBD by the command line to generate a text-based file containing key shear output for all the loading cases and an optional report containing the full calculation breakdown.

Scope

The design codes which Automation supports are Eurocodes (all variants) and Australian Standard.

The key components which Automation supports are Design Sections, Pretensioned Prestressed Design Beams and Steel Composite Design Beams.

For Design Sections, a single or composite element section or any shape can be created and analyzed. Multiple sections can also be automated in the same run. The automated analysis capability supports the following types:

  • Section properties (gross, transformed, and plastic)
  • Torsion and shear stress
  • Biaxial bending (ultimate and service limit states, resistance capacity or specific loading)
  • Shear
  • Crack width
  • Differential temperature
  • General stress-strain
  • Interaction surface

For Design Beams, the beam can be created and then a single analysis task run, or a batch of analysis tasks run, to obtain output for the allowable and design values, or say the performance at the critical position along the beam. The automated analysis capability supports the following types:

  • Section properties
  • Transfer (prestressed beams)
  • Erection (prestressed beams)
  • Construction
  • Live bending
  • Live shear
  • Interface shear
  • Temperature primary effects
  • Shrinkage and creep primary effects

For questions, please contact Support or post on the Structural Bridge Design Forum.

If you have any specific needs that are not yet covered by this Automation implementation, then let us know at bridges@autodesk.com.

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