ARCH 653 PROJECT 2

HELIX BRIDGE

Concept

In project 2, I choose to build a helix bridge. For the complex geometric shape, it is hard to build the bracing elements between the very curves, so I use Dynamo to solve this kind of challenge.

After watching tutorial videos for the Dynamo plugin for Revit, I decided to create the elements using the adaptive component and apply them as arrays in the family.

Step 1:Creating the basic shape object

The first step was to create a basic shape with two cylinders tangent together at their bottom points. I started with a mass family and implemented cylinders reference geometry parameters within a radius and the distance between the two faces. Then I divided the surface of this two cylinders.Need to mention, after dividing, I changed the points on the surface into nodes so that I could use these reference points to locate my helix.

Then I begin to add my structural curves on the surfaces of this two cylinders.

Step 2:Creating the adaptive mass family

The second step is to build the bracing elements between these curves and build the structural volume using Dynamo. The basic strategy is to create an array of these elements to suit the changing distance between the certain curves. In order to get this purpose, I use Generic adaptive mass model to create the basic bracing model.

Make the two end points into adaptive points. And use spline between two points to connect the two points.

Creating the volume of the bracing elements.

Step 3:Using Dynamo to add the bracing elements family

After we open Dynamo, the first thing is to select the curve as the target, and remember if you want to choose a line, it also uses the command select curve. Then I choose a number slider which can determine the number of the elements. After this I need transfer the elements end points into XYZs so that the system can make a list of the XYZs of these points.

When I finish the above, the most important process is to combine these XYZs together, fortunately there is a combine in Dynamo I can use to make this connection. We can notice that there is a gray bar there, and this bar is so important for it is used to define these XYZs' combination type----List.

After this, use the select family type and find the family 2 you did before(loaded into this family already so that you can find in the bar).

Final results and Renderings

The video of this project: