RELEASE NOTES
STAAD.Pro 2024 Release Notes
As part of Bentley’s commitment to deliver new builds more frequently, this version adds great new functionality to improve efficiency for engineers around the world and has resolved numerous issues that have been reported and thus highly recommend that you look to adopt this version and improve your working experience.
This release aims to provide a more productive working experience and has focused principally on adding the latest design codes for the US and Australian engineers, a new section property calculation tool and improving tools that have been growing in popularity with STAAD engineers. See below for more details. This release also addresses a significant number of defects that have been identified in order to deliver a more robust solution.
STEEL DESIGN
AISC 360-22 US Steel Design
The AISC updated the design requirements in the 2020 publication ‘Specification for Structural Steel Buildings’. Designers can now perform designs to this specification or update existing designs by setting the code to AISC UNIFIED 2022. Note that using CODE AISC UNIFIED will use the most current version of the code implemented in the version of STAAD.Pro being used.
Additional control on the design is provided by the inclusion of new parameters to
- STWO, web overhang width
- FMAIN, fabricated slenderness ratio
- FRM, the frame type the member belongs to when checking to AISC 341-22
- BRX and BRY, bracing offset distance to use in checking clauses E4 (d) and (e).
AS 4100:2020 Australian Hot rolled Steel Design
The Australian Standards Committee updated the 1998 publication of the hot rolled steel design with a 2020 edition. The steel design solutions offered in STAAD.Pro have been supplemented with an additional option to design analytical or physical steel members to the requirements of the 2020 publication as an alternative method. Although there is very little difference in the design requirements between the two editions of the code, the implementation of the 2020 code has added the following capabilities:
- Use of ENVELOPES to determine load cases/combination cases that are strength or serviceability cases.
- Improved detailed design output in the ANL file.
- Designs available in the user report.
AS 4600:2018 Australian Cold formed Steel Design
To supplement the design of hot rolled steel profiles, a design to the Australian cold rolled code AS4100:2018 has been added along with a database of standard Australian cold formed shapes.
This capability is designed to mirror the approach taken to provide cold formed steel design in other regions such as the US and India. The design engine supports a variety of cold-formed profiles including Channel without lips, Channel with lips, Double channel (without lips) linked back-to-back forming a built-up wide flange, Single Angle without lips, Single Angle with lips, Hat without lips, Tube (square/rectangular), Pipe (round), Zee without lips, Zee with lips and UPT Wide Flange.
IS800 Slender Section Design
The primary steel design code used in India, IS800-2007 does not definitively specify a method for accounting for wide flange sections which are subject to bending and have slender webs. In the past STAAD.Pro adopted a method which in some cases was identified to be unconservative and in the CONNECT Edition, an alternative method was introduced. Whilst widely agreed that this method is the preferred way to account for wide flange sections with slender webs, those engineers who wish to verify how their designs can perform using the original implementation can do so by setting a new parameter added to the design set.
UTILITIES
Shape Editor
STAAD.Pro has for many years included a module for determining the section properties of different shaped profiles. This used a standard method for calculating the section properties but was limited to only being able to use thick wall theory. However, other solutions offered by Bentley allowed engineers to use not only this theory, but also effectively calculate the properties of profiles that have thin walls. This module, called Shape Editor, is now offered as the tool for calculating properties for non-standard profiles with the previous Section Wizard module being withdrawn.
This includes methods for parametrically creating one of 20 standard shapes which can be added by defining the key dimensions:
Profiles can be manually generated as open or closed profiles with openings, e.g.
Or pulled from a library of standard shapes which can easily be edited or extended, e.g.
A significant enhancement over the previous tool is that with the Shape Editor, specific provision has been made to support thin wall shapes which can be easily created as open such as:-
Just as with the older Section Wizard, these shapes can be used to create or add to a UPT table as type PRISMATIC or GENERAL for use in a STAAD.Pro model.
Extended Export to Adina
STAAD.Pro provides many analysis solutions needed by structural engineers on a day-to-day basis. However, there are some problems that need more complex forms of analysis provided by ADINA. In 2023, an export method was provided that allowed the geometry of the current model to be exported into the ADINA IN file format. Feedback by engineers using this method has shown that two key enhancements were necessary to help optimise this solution
- Where possible, provide a mapping from the STAAD.Pro shapes to ADINA shapes.
- Export the loading from the STAAD model into ADINA either as separate load cases or utilising the time functions.
Multiframe Convertor
In order to assist engineers who have been using the Multiframe application and are trying to migrate to STAAD.Pro, a new tool has been produced to convert files defined in the *.MFD file format into the STD file format.
Microstran convertor
In order to assist engineers who have been using the Microstran application and are trying to migrate to STAAD.Pro, the file conversion tool includes the option to convert files defined in the *.ARC file format into the STD file format.
Note that the standard Microstran file format is *.MSW. This should first be saved in the Microstran Archive file format.
ProjectWise
ProjectWise integration updated to support ProjectWise 2023
INTEROP
OpenSTAAD View
The ability to access STAAD.Pro data directly though the OpenSTAAD API has been a revelation to many organisations that are now utilising this functionality to help them produce dedicated solutions around their STAAD.Pro analysis. This has been used from creating simple model generation tools and macros to using the analysis results in more complex post processing calculations needed for niche situations. More recently there has been a growing demand from engineers who have their own reporting tools to be able to utilise the diagrams that STAAD generates be available dynamically. With STAAD.Pro 2024, a new set of OpenSTAAD functions have been added that allows access and control of the graphic windows along with functions to copy and export them to the clipboard. This means external applications such as Word and Excel can be used to define the graphic windows and include them as images in their own documents.
iTwin Updates
Creating digital twins using Bentley iTwin technology from the Physical models has been improved to provide engineers a better interop experience by supporting the newly introduced ISM Load Combination methods and supporting the tapered surface definition.
REPORTING
Updated User Report Workflow
Creating a customised report has been made easier with a new customisation method that has been added to the User Report workflow. This allows the definition of individual tables to be tailored to specific requirements such as by setting a range, choosing, and naming columns and sort methods.
Additionally, following feedback from users who regularly operate STAAD.Pro with large models and/or load cases, have found that the methods used to manage the modelling and results data, a number of routines have been refactored to deliver an improvement in the performance of building the report which can in some cases be up to 50% faster.
CLOUD ANALYSIS
Update Cloud Service (Technical Preview)
More engineering organisations are leveraging the power of cloud-based solutions with the opportunities it offers to improve productivity when attempting to solve the more complex analytical problems. The solution offered with STAAD.Pro 2003 as a technology preview has provided valuable insights and led to a refactoring of the method being used to offload larger models to free up the local computer resources. An additional method to further optimise analysis times by creating sub-models and solving these in parallel.