Engineers are under growing pressure to be more productive and, at the same time, structural design is becoming increasingly complex. The architectural design tools of today have expanded the possibilities for more curves and amazing structural details, all of which end up on the desktop of structural engineers, who today are working within smaller budgets to meet tighter deadlines. These constraints have driven structural engineers to explore so-called algorithm enabled parametric modeling, also called parametric design. If you’ve heard of this but aren’t sure what it is, you aren’t alone and it’s not too late to learn.
Imagine this. What if you could change the number of columns on a bridge deck by adjusting a single value and every other part of the design that is affected by that change would automatically change as well? It would allow you to explore complex design alternatives faster than ever before – all without the need for repetitive tasks or manual updates and without programming knowledge. Does this sound out of reach? It shouldn’t because it’s possible today with algorithm enabled parametric modeling.
