There are many great tools for designing 3D steel frames – SAP2000, Robot Structural Analysis, SCIA Engineer, etc. These cover almost the majority of requirements of structural steel designers. But still, there are issues to be solved, mainly:
- Connections, details, nodes
- Stability and buckling issues
IDEA StitaCa now offers a solution for both of these issues:
- IDEA StatiCa Connection for checking of nodes and connections of any topology.
- IDEA StatiCa Member for resolving of all unclear stability and buckling topics.
Designing a complex “piece of structure” – a member or a segment is now easier than ever. The analyzed member and all members related to it are separated from the 3D frame and resolved by using of the CBFEM approach.
- Global analysis of the steel frame is done in an FEA program
- Analyzed member is loaded by calculated internal forces
- Nodes and connections are designed in IDEA StatiCa Connection UI
- Manufacturing operations can be applied to the member – transversal or longitudinal stiffeners, opening, cuts, etc.
- Loads are applied to members and at the ends of related members (equilibrium principle)
- Analysis model of Member is created automatically by CBFEM
Member application provides 3 types of analysis:
- MNA – Materially Non-linear Analysis
- LBA – Linear Buckling Analysis (buckling, stability)
- GMNIA – Geometrically and Materially Non-linear Analysis with Imperfections
IDEA StatiCa 10.1 brings a BETA version of IDEA StatiCa Member for structural analysis and design of bar members (beams, columns, diagonals, etc.) to demonstrate the calculation possibilities. BETA version is publicly available and for free. More information, tutorials, sample projects and a lot more can be found at our IDEA StatiCa Member web page.
