Tower

This command places a so-called Tower in your project in order to help organize Storeys. When analysing a system, this family is interpreted as a SOFiSTiK Tower.

Revit Family Tower

A Tower is an instance of a specific Revit family called SOFiSTiK_Tower provided by SOFiSTiK. See Family Content for more information.

It is represented by a vertical box with an rectangular floor print, spanning between two levels. By default, the Tower is oriented in the project coordinate system but can be rotated with standard Revit commands.

Properties and Parameters

Structural Properties shows an aggregated list of the most important properties of Towers:

General

Name Designation which will be printed out in report. Maximum 32 characters, certain special characters not allowed. Top storey level Upper bounds of Tower. A Storey will be created if necessary. Base storey level Lower bounds of Tower. A Storey will be created if necessary. Storey Level Association Enables highlighting (selection) of all associated levels. Storey Level Selection Edit which levels are associated to the tower.

See also

See Project Parameters for more information how we handle data.

Working with Towers

Towers are mostly used for the seismic analysis of complex projects, where building parts are investigated independently. To learn more, see Further Notes.

Preparing Storey Levels

Towers and Storey Levels are working together. Therefore, the first step of the Tower workflow, is making sure the export property of each Revit level is adequate.

The export property of a level can be conveniently controlled in the Structural Properties:

Structural Properties for Levels

General

Export as Storey Level offers the following options: Analysis Browser for Levels Dropdown Description Value Auto (default) Only levels which contain relevant elements[1] will be exported. 0 Always These levels will always be exported, no matter if relevant elements[1] are detected. +1 (>0) Never These levels will never be exported, even if relevant elements[1] are detected. -1 (<0) This property is synced with the shared parameter SOFiSTiK_Use if activated in Project Parameters. Name allows a user-defined name different from the Revit object. This name will appear for the respective SOFiSTiK element. If no name is defined, the name of the Revit object is used as a fall back and written into *.cdb. This property is synced with the shared parameter SOFiSTiK_Name if activated in Project Parameters.

[1] (1,2,3)

The following elements are considered relevant:

Analytical Panels with Structural Role: Slab

Analytical Members with Structural Role: Beam

Their nodes must be associated with the respective level.

Modelling of Towers

1. Click SOFiSTiK Analysis Tab ‣ Utilities ‣ Design Elements ‣ Tower.

2. The Revit Family is loaded into the project and the Place Family Instance mode is activated.

3. The current view rotates in an oriented Top View.

4. Place the Tower center in the estimated location (at this step, ignore Revit’s level assignment).

5. The SOFiSTiK: Tower dialog box opens:

   • Define the tower’s Top Level.

   • Define the tower’s Base Level.

   • Define the Level Selection.

   Please note that only Levels marked Export as Storey Level with values Always or Auto are offered in this dialog box, while those with Never are hidden. Top Level must always be above Base Level and vice versa. Level Selection covers the range between Top and Base Level only.

6. Finish with OK.

7. Adjust the horizontal extents of the Tower with known Revit functionality, such as:

   • Dragging the handles in a 3D view,

   • Dragging the handles in a 2D view,

   • Using Align or Move,

   • Modifying the values of properties SOFiSTiK_Tower_Width and SOFiSTiK_Tower_Length.

Storey Level Selection

If a Tower is present and visible in your view, it is crucial that all Revit Levels are assigned to at least one Tower. During export, any resulting Storey Level that is not assigned to a Tower will throw an error and be reported in Warning Messages

If any one Revit Level is assigned to multiple Towers, this will result in multiple, independent SOFiSTiK Storey Levels with the same elevation being exported. Each Storey Level will have a unique Storey Number but share a common Storey Designation.

Analysis in Revit

1. Click SOFiSTiK Analysis Tab ‣ Project ‣ Start to open the SOFiSTiK: Analysis dialog box.

2. On General ‣ Tasks to be performed, check Analyze Load Cases.

3. On Geometry ‣ Miscellaneous, check Export Storey Levels.

4. On Analysis ‣ Storey Properties, check Calculate Center of Rigidity and Center of Mass.

   Important

   This function is only available if SOFiSTiK FEA 2025 is installed.

5. Finish dialog box with Calculate.

Check the respective chapters of Module FEABENCH and ASE: Storey Forces in the Report. If something went wrong, the SOFiSTiK: Warnings dialog box will appear.

Further Analysis/Checks in SSD

• Open SOFiSTiK Structural Desktop (SSD) for the system where the Towers were active.

• Perform a Storey Checks for each Tower individually.

See also

For more general information, please refer to:

• Manual of module SOFiMSHC:

  • Definition of structural elements ‣ SLVL - Storey Levels and

  • Definition of structural elements ‣ TOWR - Towers.

• Manual of module FEACHECK:

  Methods ‣ Storey Analysis.

• Manual of module FEABENCH:

  Storey Checks.

• The descriptions of Storeys and Towers Workflow and Storey Checks.