The design situations in RFEM control which combination rules are applied when generating load and result combinations for the limit states of the standard. Manually created combinations can also be assigned to specific limit states (see the chapter Design Situations of the RFEM manual).
The "Design Situations" table for the aluminum design lists all design situations defined in the model. Here, you can decide whether and how a specific design situation should be considered for the aluminum design checks.
Selecting Combinations for Design
The “To Design” check box is activated by default. This means that all design situations are analyzed during the aluminum design. If the aluminum design is not required for a design situation, deactivate the check box. This design situation will then not be taken into account in the design checks. This selection is synchronized with the settings in the “Load Cases and Combinations” dialog box.
By default, all combinations of a design situation activated for the design are taken into account. However, you can also specify certain combinations of the design situation in the “Combinations to Design for Enumeration Method” table column: Click the
button, which is available by clicking in the cell, and then select the relevant combinations in the dialog box.
Assigning Design Situation Types
The design situations were created on the basis of the selected standard specified for the load case classification (see the chapter Standards I of the RFEM manual). The design situation type may differ from the design type However, the types are usually assigned automatically, so that a serviceability combination from the load case combination is also assigned to the “Serviceability” design type. You can check this assignment in the “Design Situation Type” table column and correct it, if necessary.
The design checks listed in the add-on are based on a design situation type. For example, if there is no design situation with the serviceability type, no serviceability limit state design is listed, only the ultimate limit state design checks. With a design situation of the ultimate limit state type, only ultimate limit state design checks are performed. For each design situation, only the design checks belonging to the design situation type are performed.
You can also activate several design situations of the same type for the design, such as two design situations for the ultimate limit state design checks. The add-on then performs the ultimate limit state design for the selected combinations of both design situations.
Using Different Material for Design
The “Different materials” option in the Load Cases and Combinations dialog box provides the option to change materials for the design checks. If you select the check box, you can specify the alternatives in a new tab.
This allows you to use different material parameters for the structural analysis and for the design.