Replace

Sometimes a situation can come up that results in that you need to change an element and replace it with another element type. An example could be that a solid slab needs to be changed to a prestressed slab.
The easiest way of doing this is just to delete the solid slab and draw a new prestressed slab instead. But these revisions often appear in the middle of the project, and by that time, most elements already got production data, e.g. cast planning. To prevent losing that planning data, and also to prevent confusion between different parties in the project, it is important that the element ID of the element that should be changed remains the same. To make sure this is the case, an IMPACT tool called Replace will be used. Replace basically takes the element mark of the old element and replaces these properties with the properties of the new element, without changing the element ID. Below is a guide of how to do this. Replace works the same for Walls, Slabs, Linked, Beams, and Columns, but in the example below, a solid slab will be replaced by a hollow core slab. 

Start with drawing the element that should replace the old element. This element needs to be saved to the database. 

Figure 1: The old and new elements

Launch the command Replace. 

Figure 2: Replace commands

Select the old element and find the element mark that should replace it. 

Figure 2: Replacing the solid slab with a hollow core without changing the element ID.