The structural analysis software RFEM 6 is the basis of a modular software system. The main program RFEM 6 is used to define structures, materials, and loads of planar and spatial structural systems consisting of plates, walls, shells, and members. The program also allows you to create combined structures as well as to model solid and contact elements.
RSTAB 9 is a powerful analysis and design software for 3D beam, frame, or truss structure calculations, reflecting the current state of the art and helping structural engineers meet requirements in modern civil engineering.
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The Masonry Design add-on allows you to automatically determine the stiffness of your wall-slab hinge. The diagrams were determined as part of the research project DDmaS - "Digitizing the design of masonry structures" and are derived from the standard.
Define a line hinge on the connection line of both surfaces and activate the slab-wall connection.
You can now enter your parameters in the Slab-Wall Connection tab. Then, click the Regenerate [...] button.
The determined diagrams are displayed subsequently.
All members when using the Design Add-ons for serviceability checks are considered supported at the end nodes by default. If the member is instead a cantilever or includes an internal support for a combination of both a cantilever and supported at both ends member type, a new Design Support should be defined under the member details.
The Design Support option can be found under the member dialog box under Design Supports & Deflection tab. Supports can be added to any nodes detected along the member length such as the member start, member end, or internal nodes.
Under the New Design Support dialog box, you can set the type of support from the drop-down including general, concrete, or timber. The "general" will give the program guidance on the deflection member type and which limiting deflection ratio to reference from the Serviceability Configurations whether cantilever (e.g., L/180) or supported on both ends (e.g., L/360). The alternative types "concrete" and "timber" will also influence the deflection design, but have additional strength design options incorporated such as moment and shear internal force modification for concrete design and a stress perpendicular to grain check for timber design.
For additional detailed information on this new setting in RFEM 6 including a "timber" type design support, refer to the webinar listed below under Links at time 51:05.
Both support forces and loads are assumed for the calculation with warping torsion in the centroid. Accordingly, an asymmetric cross-section would automatically receive torsion; see the image.
Some materials have multiple limit stress limits for compression, tension, and so on. For these materials, the limiting stress must be input manually by the user.
The limit stress values are listed under the Material Values tab.
These values can be added in the Member/Surface Configurations under the User limit stress type.
The warping of a cross-section can be displayed in the "full mode". For this, it is reasonable to increase the display factor for torsional warping in the control panel; see Image 01.
Furthermore, you can select the value of the local deformation ω [1/m] in the Results navigator; see Image 02.
RFEM and RSTAB use a variation of the subgrade reaction modulus method. The relation to stiffness modulus ES is not possible.
In RFEM, a multi-parameter foundation model has been implemented. This can be used to carry out a very realistic settlement calculation.
The problem, however, is to find precise values for the parameters Cu,z, Cv,xz, and Cv,yz. For this, you can use the Geotechnical Analysis add-on (for RFEM 6) or the RF-SOILIN add-on module (for RFEM 5): the subgrade parameters are calculated from the loads and the data of the geotechnical report (stiffness modulus or modulus of elasticity and Poisson's ratio, specific weights, layer thicknesses) for each individual finite element using a nonlinear method. These parameters are load-dependent and influence the behavior of the structure. The results of this iterative process are realistic settlements and internal forces in the structure.
After activating Torsional Warping in the Base Data, you can define warping springs and warping restraints. For this, select the Transverse Stiffeners option in the "Edit Member" dialog box; see Image 01.
In the "Transverse Stiffener" tab, you can create several transverse member stiffeners and define the necessary parameters using the "New Transverse Member Stiffener" button. For the "End plate" stiffener type, the resulting warp spring is determined automatically; see Image 02.
In addition to other variants, you can also define a rigid warping restraint or user-defined warping spring stiffness under the "Warping restraint" stiffness type.
As an alternative, you can create member transverse stiffeners using the Data navigator or the menu bar "Insert", "Types for Members", "Member Transverse Stiffeners". In this case, you can use the select function in the "New Member Transverse Stiffness" dialog box to assign them to the corresponding members.
By default, the Shear plane in thread option is activated and the lower strength according to the selected design standard is considered for the bolt shear check.
In AISC, the bolt nominal shear strengths are listed in Table J3.2. As an example, Group A (for example, A325) bolt has a nominal shear strength of 54 ksi (372 MPa) when the threads are not excluded from the shear planes. To use the higher strength of 68 ksi (469 MPa), the option can be unchecked to exclude threads from the shear planes.
A splice connection using end plates can be easily created using the “Plate to Plate” template from the Components library (Image 01).
For a splice joint without end plates, the configuration can be created manually by adding individual components (Image 02).
The configuration includes the following components. Each component can be easily deleted or copied by right-clicking on the component.
It is required that a small gap is created using “Member Cut” and “Auxiliary Plane”. The gap is divided between the two members (that is, 1/16” gap is applied as 1/32” displacement to each member).
Alternatively, a sample model “AISC Splice Connection” can be downloaded and saved as a user-defined template (Image 03).