Advance Steel Detailing Software For Fabrication & Engineering

Graitec Advance Steel was relatively unknown in the UK until more recently Graitec was originally founded in 1986 and is ranked as the third largest software provider in the world to the construction and engineering communities.

The companies focus has been to develop construction software tools that encompass all aspects of construction starting with finite element analysis and design for concrete steel and timber through to concrete and steel engineering and detailing tools.

With an annual investment of 20% of turnover being re-invested in software development and a worldwide team of over a hundred civil engineers and developers, in 2005 Graitec became the first software company in the world to be able to offer a fully integrated BIM solution to the construction industry.

Graitec Advance Steel

Graitec Advance Steel was officially launched in 2002 as a world class Steel modelling and detailing solution based on an AutoCAD platform and was a further development of the very powerful and widely respected hypersteel software platform after Graitec acquired the German developer of this popular Steel engineering and detailing platform.

Functionality wise Advance Steel detailing software has everything you would expect from a specialist Structural steel detailing package with a feature set that is comparable to those of both Strucad and Tekla and a quick peek at the customer examples on the Graitec website will show that this Steel design and detailing software is more than capable of giving its established rivals Tekla and Strucad a severe run for their money.

However, as you would expect from a leading technology developer such as Graitec they clearly have no intention of merely being comparable to the competition and the software actually outclasses that of it established rivals in a number of key areas.

Ease Of Use:
Given the familiarity of the user interface the fact that the learning curve is far shorter than that of its rivals, any 2D or 3D AutoCAD users will find the transition to a specialist modelling package far easier than the reported steep learning curves of both Tekla and Strucad.

Interoperability:
As well as having class leading import and export capability to industry standard file formats, being based on dwg format interoperability with other Autodesk platforms is simply second to none. This is proving invaluable to companies that roundtrip design data to both structural engineers and architects as almost all of these will already have .dwg file compatibility. In addition to the .dwg format Graitec have also developed an exceptional plug in for Autodesk’s emerging Revit software.

Companies involved in any manner of steel engineering or engineering design containing high levels of steel that are using other generic 3D modelling packages can also benefit hugely from Advance Steel as well.

Generic 3D modellers such as Solidworks, Inventor & Pro-e to name a few whilst being excellent design tools are widely known to struggle with steel modelling and detailing. Advance Steel now offers businesses in this sector an affordable complimentary solution with a short learning curve that is able to offer massive productivity gains thereby shortening project lead times and reducing internal costs.

Functionality:
Graitec's software development team have done an excellent job of developing specialised sub programs (affectionately known as macros) for a number of detailing and design functions for example cold rolled steel, cladding, stair design and railings and balustrades to name but a few, that are simply second to none.

These address key weaknesses reported by both Tekla and Strucad users particularly in the area of stairs and railing. Don't misunderstand though both competitors can produce these but the time taken and ease of modelling is simply not comparable to using Advance Steel's tools.

In addition Advance Steel's macro's remain dynamic (unless you want to break them) so any design changes are very quick indeed and don't require the user to start again from scratch for each design iteration.

Drawing Output:
Fabrication and detailed drawing output is exceptionally flexible and can be tailored to suit literally thousands of different requirements. Given its dwg roots its ability to easily generate complex GA's and the ease of adding of additional details (which is pretty much the norm these days when detailing with structural engineers or architects) is first class and can be done within the steel detailing software.

This is totally the opposite from Tekla and Strucad and it is quite the norm to find companies using Tekla and Strucad software will also have licenses of AutoCAD for more onerous or complex drawing and detailing requirements.

For more information about Advance Steel fill out the form below.