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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In the current state of RFEM 6, the user must manually define the shear and longitudinal reinforcement for members. This is considered the "Provided Reinforcement" within the Concrete Design add-on. The add-on calculation will then determine the "Required Reinforcement" needed from the analysis and further output the "Not Covered Reinforcement". The user must manually apply additional reinforcement if the "Required Reinforcement" is not met.
For surfaces RFEM 6 can design automatically the reinforcement.
Design of Surface Reinforcement
It is planned for the future to have an automatic design also of the member reinforcement rather than only the manual input option.
Yes, the deformation analysis taking into account the cracked state in the cross-section is included in the concrete design in RFEM 6.
For this, the effective stiffness is calculated for each element in the concrete design according to the existing cross-section state of cracked (state II) or uncracked (state I), and then used in a second FEM calculation for the deformation.
In RFEM 5, this corresponds to the solution in the "RF‑CONCRETE Deflect" add-on module. In RFEM 6, this method is included in the concrete design.
Further information about determining the crack state as part of the deformation analysis can be found in the technical article at the following link.
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.
The punching results can also be found in the Results navigator.The results are divided into the design checks "On Nodes" and the reinforcement "On Nodes".The punching loads as well as the distribution of the shear forces at the critical perimeter (smoothed and unsmoothed) are the intermediate results of the design checks and are arranged accordingly in this part of the navigator.
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.
To display the interaction diagram, open the "Design Details" dialog box of Concrete Design.
On the left side of the dialog box, you can then select the "Interaction Diagram". Thus, an additional tab called "Interaction Diagram" appears. You can control the settings for the result display here.
Check to see if the material assigned to the members is compatible with the standard selected for the design in the "Concrete Design" add-on.
Furthermore, please check to see if all design properties (durability class, concrete cover, shear and longitudinal reinforcement, and so on) have been specified correctly in the "Edit Member" dialog box.