Technical Guidance: ACI 318-25 implementation in RFEM 6

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Hello Dlubal Community,

As many practitioners in regions strictly adhering to US building codes are transitioning to the new ACI 318-25 standard, I would like to initiate a discussion regarding its implementation roadmap in RFEM 6 and share some manual workflows to ensure code compliance in current models.

Currently, the Concrete Design Add-on natively supports up to ACI 318-19. While we wait for the official release and native implementation of the 2025 code, certain critical updates require immediate attention, particularly regarding seismic design categories (Chapters 18 and 25), updated development length calculations, and specific stiffness modification factors, among others.

I would like to ask the Dlubal development team and the community the following:

  1. Official Transition Guide: Is there an official technical note or transition guideline planned for users who need to bridge the gap between ACI 318-19 and ACI 318-25 within the current version of RFEM 6?
  2. Implementation Timeline: What is the expected roadmap or release schedule for the native integration of ACI 318-25 into the Concrete Design and Building Model add-ons?

Current Manual Workarounds (For discussion and verification):

To maintain regulatory compliance in my current projects, I have been implementing the following manual adjustments within RFEM 6. I would appreciate your feedback on these workflows:

  • Stiffness Modifications: Manually overriding the structure's stiffness modification factors directly in the Structure Modification settings or specific surface/member properties to align with the refined effective inertia criteria.
  • Development Lengths & Anchorage: Overriding or verifying the automatically generated development lengths (l_d) in the reinforcement detailing options, specifically checking the anchorage provisions against the updated ACI 318-25 criteria.
  • Seismic Design Categories: Manually adjusting the response spectrum parameters in the Spectral Analysis module to account for the refined geographic and site-specific seismic coefficients before mapping the results to the concrete design checks.

Looking forward to hearing how other engineers are handling this transition and any insights from the Dlubal support team.

Best regards,

Alex R. Sanchez

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Hi Alex,
thanks for your inquiry. The ACI 318-25 is planned for the Concrete Design add-on. While we don't have an exact timeline for release, you can expect it later this year. We will keep you informed. Until then, the 2019 standard will need to be used with manual design checks considered for changes in the latest version."

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