What's New in STAAD.Pro CONNECT Edition, Build 21.00.00.42 ( 20 June 2017)

Issues addressed in:

(A) The Analysis/Design engine (42)

A) 01 The Steady State analysis routine has been updated to ensure that when using the Ground Motion option in the Steady State or Harmonic variations, and the displacement option specified, the value of given displacement is taken in the current length unit rather than always in inches as was occurring previously.

A) 02 The Imperfection Analysis routine has been updated to catch a situation where combination load cases have been defined. Combinations are pure algebraic summations using factors assigned to the primary cases. These are suitable for a linear elastic analysis but not appropriate for the non-linear nature of the imperfection analysis. The combination cases should be created using REPEAT LOADS. Previously, this would have caused the analysis to crash. Now a warning message is included in the output file.

A) 03 The optional report for a time history load case (*.TIM), that will be created if the SAVE option in the time history definition is included, has been corrected as the displacements reported at a given time step were for the subsequent time step. This issue was addressed in build 20.07.11.90, but not reported in the Revision History.

A) 04 The AISC 360 design of UPT equal angle profiles has been updated. Whilst the overall reporting critical ratio was correct, the program was not reporting the results of both geometric and principal axis calculations.

A) 05 The AISC 360 design routines for serviceability checks have been updated to ensure that the location of the maximum deflection is reported. Previously, this was always being reported as zero.

A) 06 The design of HSS sections to AASHTO (ASD) is currently not supported, (see Technical Reference section 2.6.1.1). These sections were not being trapped as invalid, but are trapped now.

A) 07 The processing of MASS reference load cases has been updated to ensure that if a case is defined as MASS, then only subsequent reference cases that are also defined as MASS are considered as mass. Previously, if a case was defined as NONE, they would also be added to the mass calculations.

A) 08 The processing of members that have been marked as DELETED in the input file have been updated to ensure that even if loading is assigned to these members, these loads are not processed. Previously loading members marked as DELETED would cause the analysis to crash.

A) 09 A warning is added if using the option PRINT STATICS LOAD with an analysis command on models with greater than 1000 nodes as the amount of output generated would not be practical.

A) 10 The processing of the surface object selfweight command has been updated to correct the loading created with the list option ALL. Previously this would have doubled the weight of surface objects.

A) 11 The processing of a geometric non-linear analysis command has been updated to catch the situation where a displacement target has been set, but without specifying the target node. This is an error and is reported as such and the analysis will end.

A) 12 The geometric non-linear analysis has been updated to ensure that when a target displacement is specified the output data is reported on the number of steps. Previously an additional two steps were recorded which repeated the value from the final step.

A) 13 The AISC 360 design codes have been updated to ensure that for reporting the slenderness ratio, the correct radius of gyration is utilised in the calculation which caused some members to show as fails when in fact they should pass.

A) 14 The analysis processing of models that include both Russian steel and South African steel designs has been updated to ensure that the data stored does not overlap causing errors in the design. This would not occur if only one or other design code was included in the file.

A) 15 The AISC 360 design check for H2-1 has been updated to ensure that the minor axis stresses required in the check use the minor axis elastic modulus.

A) 16 An additional note has been added to the output when a FLOOR LOAD has been defined using a FLOOR GROUP. This advises users that each FLOOR GROUP should be defined on a single plane to ensure that the routine can correctly calculate and distribute the specified floor load.

A) 17 The steel design routines have been supplemented with design to the New Zealand steel code NZS3404. For full details refer to the International Codes manual for full details.

A) 18 The detail output for a torsion design to Design Guide 9 has been updated to ensure that the report references the user specified member number rather than the internal reference number used by the calculation engine.

A) 19 The AISC ASD 9th Edition design has been updated to improve the determination of the section classification for members subject to bending and compression according to table B5.1. Additionally the requirements of section 2 in Chapter F have been modified to only limit the allowable stress to 0.66Fy for sections that are non-compact. Previously, sections that were NOT non-compact were also being limited.

A) 20 The processing of uniformly distributed moment loads (UMOM) has been revised and improved the accuracy of the calculated results of these load types.

A) 21 Time History and Steady State analysis are not mutually compatible in the same file. This is occurrence is detected, an error message is displayed and the analysis terminated.

A) 22 The IS 456 concrete design routines have been updated to support SET Z UP. If the command SET Z UP is defined, then the program will perform the designs using the local Y axis of members as the major axis and local Z axis as the minor axis. Please note, not all commands support the Z UP option and this should be used with care.

A) 23 The analysis engine has been updated to ensure that if the model has more members than an assumed limit of (6 *no. nodes), then this does not cause the analysis to crash.

A) 24 The routine that determines the intermediate axial forces to report on members for combinations which are formed from other defined combinations has been corrected to prevent the factors being used becoming zero.

A) 25 The analysis processing for PMEMBER loading has been improved to ensure that if any lateral offset has been assigned to a uniformly distributed load or concentrated member load.

A) 26 The processing of solid entity face loading has been improved. Previously, the direction of the load if applied on faces 1 or 6 was being inverted.

A) 27 The design of members to the cold formed design codes, AISI, BS5950-pt 5, S136 and IS 801 have been updated to improve handling the range of shapes/databases that the individual code is designed to support. The TRACK 2 reports for these codes has also been updated to provide clearer output.

A) 28 The Indian concrete design module to IS456 has been updated to trap the use of trapezoidal sections and other invalid sections as columns which are not supported by this module. For these profiles, please refer to the STAAD Advanced Concrete Design (RCDC) which supports complex shaped columns.

A) 29 The advanced analysis solver has been updated to catch situations where the size of model and load case requirements require more memory than is available. Previously this would have caused the analysis simply to crash. Now a warning message is displayed and the analysis terminated. Also note that from this version, the analysis is built on a 64 bit platform which greatly extends the size of analysis that can be solver.

A) 30 The AISC 360 design routines have been updated to improve the calculation of Qa for members with slender elements in Chapter E, Design of Members for Compression. Previously the required reduction was not being applied only to the stiffened elements and thus resulted in a lower effective area and an overall conservative result.

A) 31 All Eurocode 3 steel design National Annexes have been updated to report the respective L-T Buckling curves used for calculating the final LTB capacity of a member. For a TRACK 2 output, the output file now reports the curve that was used in its design.

A) 32 A warning message reporting insufficient memory for section force calculations has been introduced to clarify the correct condition when previously a warning stating that insufficient memory for section displacement was reported. The situation has also been improved by adding a temporary external file is created rather than attempting to hold all the data in memory.

A) 33 The steel design for EN 1993-1-1 has been updated to address an issue when determining the effective torsional length on a set of members for which only some had been assigned a value with the EFT parameter. Those members that had not been assigned a value were taken as zero for the length rather than default of the member length and thus resulted in a failure for the design.

A) 34 The processing of member weights for seismic loading has been updated to account for member releases. This may affect the distribution of selfweight, member distributed and concentrated weights.

A) 35 The steel design module to EN1993-1-1 has been updated to improve the design when using the BEAM 1 option. The design is now performed on the forces at each section rather than using the combined maximum moment and shear forces as though they were co-existent.

A) 36 The AISC 360 design has been improved by allowing the specification of a torsion support type using the parameter TND.

A) 37 The performance for the steel design SELECT for the steel design code EN1993-1-1 has been updated to remove unnecessary checks on members that have failed, thus resulting in the preferred solution much more rapidly.

A) 38 The analysis routines used to calculate the intermediate forces for members subject to torsional loads have been improved and thus will produce more accurate intermediate member results.

A) 39 The Russian SNiP steel design has been updated to catch a situation where an internal variable was not being initialised and could cause a member to be treated as though it was in compression when it is only subject to tension forces.

A) 40 The processing of wind load on open structures with members that have assigned beta angles has been updated to improve the method for determining the projected direction in the GY direction.

A) 41 The processing of intermediate section forces for each time step for a time history load case has been updated to use a linear interopaltion of the calculated end forces. Previously section forces were only available for the last time step.

A) 42 The processing of offsets defined on PMEMBERS has been updated to ensure that the offset in the X direction is correctly assigned to the end of a member and the interpolation of intermediate offsets in the Y and Z directions for multi part physical members.

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(B) The Pre-Processing Mode (21)

B) 01 The addition of an analysis command in models which have reference load cases, but no primary load cases has been updated to ensure that the analysis command does not get added inside the reference case block.

B) 02 The GUI processing of a command that defines compression only ELASTIC MAT support has been updated to ensure that the compression only status of the command is retained. Previously, the compression only status would be removed if the file was re-saved.

B) 03 The internal method for handling multiple executables/process ids has been reformatted in order to support PIDs generated by Windows of greater than a 32 bit integer.

B) 04 The processing of the context sensitive menu item (i.e. right click) 'List/Delete Member Attribute' has been updated to ensure that memory allocation has been made for attributes that have been defined on the selected members. Previously this action would have caused the program to crash.

B) 05 The GUI has been updated to validate that the selected location to create the model has sufficient write permission available to the user at the point when the selection is made. Previously, if the target folder is a restricted folder, such as Program Files, the program does not show this as a problem until trying to close the model when it reports that there is a permission failure and does not allow the program to close.

B) 06 A legacy set of databases for Rceco have been removed from the supplied databases.

B) 07 The Chinese seismic load to GB50010 has been updated to correct the addition of reference load cases used to determine the mass. If a reference case was added to the definition, the id added to the file might not match that of the case selected.

B) 08 A new GUI has been provided to allow the definition of physical models and surfaces, assignment of properties, creation of load groups. These models are managed and decomposed into the analytical STD file which is handed over to the main STAAD.Pro analysis modeling mode, but data created here is restricted and can only be modified in the Physical Modelling mode. Analysis load cases, combinations and design data can be added and when the analysis and design is performed, any recommended changes to the profiles can be imported and the physical model updated.

B) 09 The creation of an ENVELOPE definition by the GUI has been updated to ensure that the specification of a type STRESS and STRENGTH are correctly recorded.

B) 10 The text parsing routine in the new Editor has been updated to improve the performance and prevent occasional crashes caused by conflicts between internal processing of the text and various components of the UI.

B) 11 The GUI has been updated to support ELASTIC MAT and PLATE MAT commands which have multi-linear supports defined.

B) 12 The import of a DXF file has been updated to ensure that if a file is imported and no other change is made, the program still recognises that a change has been made and that closing the file should trigger a save routine.

B) 13 The GUI has been updated to recognise the command 'PRINT STORY STIFFNESS'. This command was being recognised as 'PRINT STORY DRIFT' and was being saved as such if the model was updated in the GUI.

B) 14 The Grid Line tool has been updated to reintroduce importing DXF as grid lines which was suspended due to the limitations of the control on newer operating systems.

B) 15 The GUI has been updated to correct the command that is added to the input file for a Russian concrete design parameter CRA. Previously this would not be formated correctly and would be reported as an error by the analysis/design engine.

B) 16 The GUI has been updated to ensure that if a model has been started, ie. includes model data and the import DXF option used to add additional data, this does not cause the application to crash. The existing data will be saved and a new model started.

B) 17 The GUI processing of the Time History definition dialog has been updated to improve handling of the Spectrum option. If this was defined and then later edited, clicking on the Change button in the dialog would cause the program to crash.

B) 18 The GUI processing of the dialog from the menu option ' Commands > Analysis > Clear Above Commands' has been updated to ensure that if 'Direct Analysis' commands have been removed, re-displaying the dialog does not show that 'Direct Analysis' commands exist to be removed.

B) 19 The GUI processing of the dialog from the menu option ' Commands > Member Specifications > Clear Above Commands...' has been updated to ensure that the specifications 'Imperfection' and 'Cracked Property' are deleted if the options are selected and present in the data.

B) 20 The GUI processing of the dialog from the menu option ' Commands > Support Specifications > Clear Above Commands...' has been updated to ensure that any 'Plate Mat' support definitions are deleted if the option is selected and plate mat commands are present in the data.

B) 21 The GUI processing of data entered into a time history definition using user entered data for a time function, has been updated for when the definition is edited. If the base unit was set to English and the loading type changed to an alternative method, Acceleration/Force/Moment, then the values in the table were being modifed which should not have occurred.

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(C) The Post-Processing Mode (07)

C) 01 Velocities in models that included a time history load case the post processing when the base unit system was set to METRIC were incorrectly converted by a factor of 10^3.

C) 02 The floor vibration tool available from the Report menu for composite decks to AISC Design Guide 11 has been updated to correctly account for metric units. Additionally the combined mode calculation has been modified so that it is no longer determined from the first beam or girder, but based on the average structural response. The value of Po is based on a building type selection and the value of the damping constant, BETA, is now provided as a user entry which should be between 0.01 and 0.05.

C) 03 Shear stresses in the table 'Reports>Beam Stresses…' have been updated to improve the results reported for sections that have very small shear areas defined (<0.001 m2) and the base unit set to Metric. Below this threshold the program used gross area. This issue did not occur when the base unit was set to English units.

C) 04 The design of members to the Canadian steel code S16-14 and S16-09 have been slightly modified to ensure that the details displayed for the design in the member query window displays the label and value of U1Z.

C) 05 The design for single angles to the AISC 360 design codes has been slightly modified to ensure that the details of the compression capacity are available and displayed in the member query dialog.

C) 06 The stress types available in the dialog 'Result along a line' has been rationalised and the option 'Base Pressure' has been withdrawn as this was not a valid option.

C) 07 The post processing routine that can be used to create an AVI file (Tools>Create AVI File…) has been modified to create the AVI file in the model folder, rather than Spro executable folder.

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(D) The Steel Design Mode (01)

D) 01 The steel designer mode has been updated to ensure that the overall status reported in the Design Results Table on a physical member is based on the maximum of all the analytical members that have been checked as part of the design, not just the status of the last analytical member.

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(E) Issues Addressed in the Concrete Design Mode (03)

E) 01 The Concrete Design module has been updated to catch any load-cases that have been created as a result of including the IMR option in a response spectrum load case. These additional dynamic cases would previously have caused the concrete design module to crash if present.

E) 02 The GUI has been updated to catch an event where highlighting one or more members in the Selected list of the Design Options dialog box and then clicking on the 'OK' or 'Design' buttons would cause the program to crash.

E) 03 Beam design to the French BEAL 91 code has been updated to catch a situation which might occur when a possible end shear zone is identified, but its length is less that the horizontal spacing of shear links. Previously this would have caused the design to crash and produce no results.

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(F) Issues Addressed in the RAM Connection Mode (11)

F) 01 The details of the maximum and minimum weld sizes were inverted in the connection user report which indicated that some connections had failed the weld check when in fact they had not.

F) 02 The RAM Connection module has been updated to support upto 1000 individual templates for any given type. Previously the limit was 250 and this was exceeded by the AISC MEP-BCF templates which when displayed would cause the program to crash.

F) 03 The RAM Connection module has been updated to improve identification of the top of columns which are set in the RAM Connection template as 'Is Column End'

F) 04 The implementation of the RAM Connection component has been improved to provide a better transparent view option of a designed connection.

F) 05 The design of gusset plate connections has been updated to support the use of T profiles as bracing members which were previously causing the application to crash.

F) 06 The RAM Connection module has been updated to support user databases in excess of 10,000 entries. Previously this was limited to 1000 entries.

F) 07 The Gusset Plate CVR template only supports wide flange shapes for the beam members, however, if a hollow profile such as an HSS section was assigned, this was not being reported as an invalid profile. This error is now trapped.

F) 08 The data associated with a STAAD model that has RAM Connection data associated has been updated to ensure that it does not cause the application to crash if such files are opened by double clicking on the base STD file.

F) 09 The RAM Connection optimization routines have been reworked to vastly improve the performance which previously caused a number of connection designs to take a significant amount of time.

F) 10 The RAM Connection design routines have been updated to help re-design similar connections. Right click in the RAM Connection table to identify a connection, then double click with the right button to select all other similar connections. Click on the Edit button on the table to then re-design all these connections together.

F) 11 The option to create custom template collections has been reintroduced in the RAM Connection mode.

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(G) Issues Addressed in the Advanced Slab Design Mode (00)

(None)

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(H) Issues Addressed in the Piping Mode (00)

(None)

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(I) Issues Addressed in the Editor, Viewer and other modules (05)

I) 01 The Editor has been enhanced with the option to allow the user to print a range of pages of the input file.

I) 02 The Editor parsing code has been updated to handle lines that are entered into the command file and started with a tab. Previously, that would cause the Editor to enter a loop from which it could not return.

I) 03 A new database for standard Chinese profiles has been added to Section Wizard.

I) 04 The Editor has been updated to reintroduce the link to the help documentation for the currently selected topic when pressing the 'F1' key on the keyboard.

I) 05 The GUI has been updated to handle a background event that would cause the 'Building Planner' tab to blink and lead to the GUI to lock. Note this would only occur on computers that had activated the Building Planner.

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(J) Issues Addressed in OpenSTAAD (03)

J) 01 The OpenSTAAD function GetIntermediateMemberForcesAtDistance has been updated to ensure the values reported match those in the post processing Beam Force Detail, including when the load case includes response spectrum results.

J) 02 The OpenSTAAD functions CreateIsotropicMaterialSteel and CreateIsotropicMaterialConcrete have been updated for more flexibility in specifying the parameters. For defining a steel material, you can now set dfy, dfy, drt, dry as 0.0, yet TYPE STEEL will be added to the material definition. However a value of 1.1 will be assigned to Rt and Ry. For a concrete material, if Fcu is entered as 0.0, it will be set as 1.5 * (Ec/5500)^2 based on Fcu and Ec in N/mm2.

J) 03 The OpenSTAAD Application Object function GetMinMaxAxialForce has been updated to ensure that the minimim value is returned correctly.

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(K) Issues Addressed with Documentation and Printing (12)

K) 01 The SELECT code pack required for AITC 1994 has been clarified in the online help.

K) 02 The online help has been updated to a HTML format.

K) 03 The International Codes manual section 11.F.4 IS800:2007 Design Parameters has been updated to include the definition of CAN option 2, which identifies a member as a simply supported beam.

K) 04 The International Codes manual has been updated to clarify that the concrete design to Eurocode 2 (ENV) is no longer supported. To perform a design to the Eurocode, the Concrete Design mode should be utilised.

K) 05 The export of finite elements to a DXF file has been updated to ensure that the location of the node numbers, property information, etc, use the same transformation as the image of the finite elements and are not mirrored about the model X/Y plane in STAAD.Pro.

K) 06 The AIJ steel design parameters have been updated to show the correct default value for the BEAM parameter which is 1, i.e. design performed at 13 equally divided sections.

K) 07 The parameter DBS was removed from the program when the IS 800:2007 design code in V8i SS5 (20.07.11.33). Whilst the option was removed from the application and the GUI, it was not removed from the documentation.

K) 08 The hyperlinks in the installation Guide have been updated to reflect the current Bentley support website.

K) 09 Minor typos of number of issues in the sections of earlier revision history documents corrected.

K) 10 The references to sample files included with the installation for the N690 codes in the International Design Codes manual have been removed as these files are not supplied, but can be created by using the provided data.

K) 11 The identification to the Eurocode 8 documents used for the response spectrum definitions in the topic, Available Structural Load Specifications in STAAD.Pro, have been updated to use the correct references.

K) 12 Section 5.27.4 of the Technical Reference manual, Multilinear Spring Support Specification has been updated to confirm conditions when the multi-linear spring should not be used.

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(L) Issues Addressed with licensing / security / installation (03)

L) 01 STAAD.Pro is now formally validated for use on Windows 10.

L) 02 Usage logs for ancillary licenses available on the Start Screen have been revised to ensure that if the item is selected and then deselected, the time at which the item was deselected is recorded, not the time the application is stopped.

L) 03 Use of the Singapore Concrete Design code CP65 has been updated to be associated with the STAAD Asian Design Codes.

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