Monday, 4 January 2010

Introduction to STAAD Pro

STAAD.Pro is a general purpose structural analysis and design program with applications primarily in the building industry - commercial buildings, bridges and highway structures, industrial structures, chemical plant structures, dams, retaining walls, turbine foundations, culverts and other embedded structures, etc. The program hence consists of the following facilities to enable this task.

1. Graphical model generation utilities as well as text editor based commands for creating the mathematical model. Beam and column members are represented using lines. Walls, slabs and panel type entities are represented using triangular and quadrilateral finite elements. Solid blocks are represented using brick elements. These utilities allow the user to create the geometry, assign properties, orient cross sections as desired, assign materials like steel, concrete, timber, aluminum, specify supports, apply loads explicitly as well as have the program generate loads, design parameters etc.

2. Analysis engines for performing linear elastic and pdelta analysis, finite element analysis, frequency extraction, and dynamic response (spectrum, time history, steady state, etc.).

3. Design engines for code checking and optimization of steel, aluminum and timber members. Reinforcement calculations for concrete beams, columns, slabs and shear walls. Design of shear and moment connections for steel members.

4. Result viewing, result verification and report generation tools for examining displacement diagrams, bending moment and shear force diagrams, beam, plate and solid stress contours, etc.

5. Peripheral tools for activities like import and export of data from and to other widely accepted formats, links with other popular softwares for niche areas like reinforced and prestressed concrete slab design, footing design, steel connection design, etc.

6. A library of exposed functions called OpenSTAAD which allows users to access STAAD.Pro’s internal functions and routines as well as its graphical commands to tap into STAAD’s database and link input and output data to third-party software written using languages like C, C++, VB, VBA, FORTRAN, Java, Delphi, etc. Thus, OpenSTAAD allows users to link in-house or third-party applications with STAAD Pro.

STAAD Pro is basically based on Finite Element Analysis and is programmed in C for carrying out the computations for Analysis and Design of a Structure. STAAD Pro works in a very user friendly environment with a option of shifting between graphical and analytical modes any time between the work.
With its features it is one of the most common softwares used in industry.
So grab a copy of the software and start designing with me.
Happy learning to all STAADers

Sunday, 3 January 2010

Civil Engineering Softwares

             Civil Engineering is considered as one of the mother branches of Engineering along with Mechanical and Electrical Engineering. With the introduction and advancement of other branches of Engineering like Computer Science and Electronics Engineering, the old methods of designing manually went for a toss in the world of Civil Engineering as well. New softwares were designed which eased out manual labor and at the same time increased the accuracy of calculations and also were able to handle more complicated and large problems. These softwares are based on the traditional methods of analysis which at the same time utilize the skills and speed of computer programming to yield greatest efficiency.
             The advantages of softwares over manual analysis and design in Civil Enginering are:
· Speed: These softwares can do calculations at breathtaking speed.
· Accuracy: The calculations are accurate upto many decimal places which is not possible by manual calculations.
· Complexity: Complex and big problems can be solved easily by these softwares, like designing a multi storey building in hours, designing a complex bridge etc. all can be done in a very very short period of time.
· Data transfer between softwares: All softwares are so integrated as data can be transferred from one to the other very easily. Like a base plan be drawn in Autocad can be easily opened in designing software applications. Thereby increasing the level of communication between different departments.
            There are many softwares available in the market categorized for use in various aspects like Analysis of structures, steel design, concrete design, highway design, project management, water resources, surveying , drafting etc.

           The most commonly used among these are AutoCad for Drafting and STAAD Pro for Analysis and Designing of Structures.

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