Using Compartmentation for Quick Gross Area Calculations
The Compartmentation view in Solibri Model Checker (SMC) allows you to visualize compartments of various types and view properties such as total calculated area and fire ratings, depending on the type of compartment.
There are 4 types of compartments in SMC: Building Envelope, Fire Compartments, Gross Areas, and Secure Compartments. In this article, we’ll focus on Gross Area Compartments. You can follow along using the SMC Building.smc file that comes with SMC. You can find this file under File > Recent > Recent Model Places > models, in the SMC directory.
The clinic model IFC example is available here; we will be using this model after our initial actions with the SMC Building file.:
Open the SMC Building.smc sample model and click Add View > Compartmentation.
You’ll find that compartments have already been created for Building Envelope, Fire Compartments, and Gross Areas.
Expand the gross area and select on some of the Gross Area compartments. As selected, you’ll see those compartments isolated in the view.
Also, notice that the area is calculated for each compartment… in this case, each floors gross area.
In the Compartmentation view, with the Gross Areas folder selected, click X Remove Selected button to remove all gross areas, as we’ll create them again ourselves.
Click Add View > Classification to open the classification view, if it isn’t currently open.
In the Classification view, expand the Space Grouping classification, and select Gross Area. This model contains spaces that represent the gross areas on each floor. With the Gross Area classifications selected, click the = Set to Selection Basket button. These Gross Area spaces are now selected.
With the Gross Area spaces selected in the classification view and in the Compartmentation view, in the Compartmentation view, click the Compartmentation Wizard button.
In the Compartmentation Wizard dialog, mark the Gross Areas as the type of compartments to be created, mark Use Selected Spaces as the method, and click OK.
The Gross Area compartments will be generated as before. These spaces were used to determine the exterior walls/columns that encompass the Gross Area.
Modeling your gross areas in an area plan makes compartmentation in SMC quite simple. If these spaces aren’t modeled, you’ll need to use another method to generate your compartments.
Close the SMC Building.smc model, and open the Clinic_A_optimized.zip file in SMC. This model doesn’t contain any spaces that are gross areas.
In the Compartmentation view, with the Gross Areas selected, click the Compartmentation Wizard button.
In the Compartmentation Wizard dialog, mark the Gross Areas as the type of compartments to be created, mark Use All Spaces as the method, and click OK.
After the compartments are generated, select the Second Floor gross area compartment in the Compartmentation view. You’ll see there is a problem since the exterior roof had a space modeled.
One method to correct the issue would be to remove the walls surrounding the roof from the compartment, and add the walls that surround the actual interior of the building. To do this, you would first turn on Show Other Walls Transparent in the Compartmentation view. Using the Select Tool, select the actual walls that surround the gross area on the second floor. You see these selected and highlighted in blue below:
With these walls set to the selection basket, click the Add walls of selection basket to compartment button.
Now, we need to remove the roof walls from the compartment. Again, using the selection tool, select the outside walls surrounding the roof as seen below and click the Remove walls of selection basket from compartment button:
This is a rather slow, detailed process requiring you to select each specific wall, but it will correct the issue.
A simpler method is to use all the spaces in the model with the exception of roof spaces to create our compartments. In the model tree, click the Component Hierarchy button, select space components, and click the = Set to selection basket button.
Then scroll down the list, multi-select the roof spaces, and click the - Remove from selection basket button.
Now only the internal spaces will be used to determine the walls of the gross area compartments.
In the Compartmentation view, with the Gross Areas folder selected, click the Remove Selected to remove all gross areas.
With the Gross Areas selected, click the Compartmentation Wizard button.
In the Compartmentation Wizard dialog, mark the Gross Areas as the type of compartments to be created, mark Use Selected Spaces as the method, and click OK.
The gross area compartments will be created using the correct external walls.
