About Rebar Patterning

In most cases, designing a single bar is not sufficient to reinforce a concrete structure. Creating bars one by one can be fastidious. The rebar creation command provides a pattern component that enables to replicate a bar profile. You can generate the rebar layer can be efficiently using the patterning tools.

This section provides a list of the most useful patterns available in the Concrete Structures 3D Design for processing the rebar profile replication and create a rebar bed.

This page discusses:

Linear Pattern

Linear pattern is the default pattern proposed by the rebar creation command, because the most frequently used during rebar design. The pattern direction is defined along the normal vector of the concrete face or plane selected in 3D (Z direction of the base axis system). You can change the direction or invert it. Use any of the three following modes to customize the linear pattern according to your needs:

  • Count: To change the number of bars in the resulting layer. The count value is deduced according to an extremum point.
  • Spacing (default mode): To change the spacing value between the bars. The spacing value is deduced according to an extremum point.
    Note: For both modes, a default extremum point is provided but can be changed if it is not the expected one. By default, this point is the farthest point belonging to the concrete body from the base axis system.
  • Combination of Count and Spacing: No extremum point in this mode. Count and spacing values are not linked and you can thus change their values independently.

Curvilinear Pattern

This pattern replicates instances along a curve. Most of common options are proposed such as count, spacing and offset. The curvilinear pattern can be used to create a rebar bed following a complex profile.

Selection Pattern

This pattern is created from already existing axis systems. You can select either axis systems individually or select a geometrical set that contains multiple axis systems.

Additional Pattern Functions

To complement the pattern types proposed, you can use two relevant functions:

  • Copy pattern with link: A bar profile is replicated using a pattern that already exists in the current 3Dshape. A modification of the shared pattern involves a modification of all the rebar layers pointing this pattern.
  • Copy pattern: A bar profile is replicated using a pattern that already exists in the current 3D shape. A modification of the pattern that has been copied does not involve the modification of the current rebar layer pointing the copied pattern.

The Copy pattern with link function is useful to keep the same pattern specifications between different rebar layers, without modifying them one by one. Copy and Copy with link functions can save time if you do not want to create and customize the same complex pattern several times.