Be Structural Newsletter
Welcome to our latest Structural Newsletter. We hope you find it informative. If you would like to comment on the newsletter, its topics or content, please contact us.
RAM Concept provides increased productivity and efficiency for slab and mat designs - reinforced and post-tensioned concrete. It is finite-element-based analysis and design software that allows you to more accurately and efficiently design complex floors. An entire elevated slab or mat foundation, no matter how complicated, can be designed more efficiently using RAM Concept.
It easily accounts for steps, openings, complicated loadings and other irregularities. RAM Concept’s finite-element-based analysis provides major advantages over conventional strip methods, allowing you to handle complex floor design more accurately and with more confidence in the results. Also, when changes occur you can make them quickly and redesign the entire slab or mat instead of dealing with changes in many individual strips. The ability to model in slabs and mats quickly is provided by allowing you to import drawings to use as a background.
In addition, RAM Concept links with RAM Structural System and STAAD.Pro, which allows engineers to perform gravity and lateral analysis and design on multi-story 2 way slab (post-tensioned or mild reinforced) concrete buildings.
Harley Ellis Devereaux, a leading architectural, engineering, and planning firm with more than 500 employees in five offices, has selected Bentley’s RAM Concept application to help design the concrete structural elements of its 13-story Eastgate Village senior residence project in Chicago. Because RAM Concept is fully integrated with RAM Structural System, the team will be able to cost-effectively complete the design of the flat slab while meeting the project’s challenging delivery schedule.
Said Jim Corsiglia, a senior structural engineer and principal with Harley Ellis Devereaux, “By adding Bentley’s integrated concrete solution to our tool set, we are able to more efficiently complete the design of an entire building all the way down to the foundation. In the past, we would have had to manually transfer loads from one application to another, creating the potential for errors and consequent tedious, time-consuming changes. However, because Bentley’s concrete tools interoperate with all of our other RAM applications, we now spend less time correcting errors and more time being innovative and productive in our design work.”
To find out more about RAM Concept visit www.Bentley.com/RAMConcept.
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Bentley Systems’ Structural Engineering Group is continually trying to improve our software and implement features that our users need. Our Regional Engineers visit hundreds of firms every year which allows them to relay feedback to our development team.
Our most recent releases include:
- RAM Structural System 12.0
- ProSteel 18.0
- RAM Advanse 9.0
RAM Structural System Version 12.0
RAM Structural System is Bentley’s modeling, analysis, and design software for structural engineers involved in the design of building structures of all types. The software provides powerful automated and integrated tools that increase structural engineers’ productivity, allowing them to be more profitable and to more quickly produce economical designs. For more information on RAM Structural System visit www.Bentley.com/RAMStructuralSystem.
RAM Structural System V12.0 includes many new design features. Some of the highlights include:
• Concrete Shear Wall Design module has been added to RAM Concrete
• Flexible Diaphragms
• Ability to recover and apply signs to the Response Spectra analysis
• UK deck tables now include the SMD TR80, TR60 and R51 profiles
ProSteel Version 18.0
ProSteel provides powerful automated and integrated tools that enhance structural detailing and fabrication productivity for structural engineers, fabricators and detailers of structures of all types. For more information on ProSteel visit www.Bentley.com/ProSteel.
ProSteel Version 18.0 includes many new features. Some of the highlights include:
- Interfaces CIMSteel / CIS/2, SDNF 2 and SDNF 3, DSTV
- Support of user shapes, improved interface with STAAD
- 34 new parametrical user shapes are implemented
- Associative dimensioning of the model
- Detailing of Assemblies and Joints
- Individual dimensioning according to the type of object
- Complex and “multilevel” dimensioning of groups
RAM Advanse Version 9.0
RAM Advanse provides sophisticated design tools to help structural engineers with everyday analysis and design needs for almost any type of structure or structural component. The software provides powerful automated and integrated tools that increase the productivity and profitability of structural engineering organizations by allowing them to produce economical designs more quickly. For more information on RAM Advanse, visit www.Bentley.com/RAMAdvanse.
RAM Advanse version 9.0 includes many new features. A few of the highlights include:
- A truss design module, a concrete wall design module and reinforced concrete beam and column modules
- AISC 360-05 Specification for Structural Steel Buildings (LRFD & ASD)
- AF&PA National Design Specification (NDS) for Wood Construction 2005 Edition, with the ASD and the LRFD methods
- AISI North American Specification for the Design of Cold-Formed Steel Structural Members 2001 (including 2004 supplement). The LRFD and ASD methods are included
For more information on Bentley’s RAM and STAAD product lines, please visit www.Bentley.com/Structural or let us contact you.
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Using AutoPIPE to Solve Extreme Plant Problems: Queensland Alumina Ltd - Case Study
Queensland Alumina was designed in the 1960’s by Kaiser Engineers (USA) using hand calculations before the luxury of having advanced, easy-to-use computer programs for modeling and analysis of any type of loading condition. Now operating for 40 years, QAL is committed to high standards of design and safety. The production of Alumina is handling raw bauxite, hot caustic soda and high pressure steam. Throw in many high pressure flash tanks and pump dynamic cycling conditions and it is a cocktail of the most extreme operating conditions in any plant. Over time, pump failures along with pipe support and structural damage have caused significant maintenance costs as well as loss of production revenue due to downtime.
"QAL has been using AutoPIPE for 6 years now, to design modifications to the plant to reduce the excessive loads on pumps, nozzles and supports saving hundreds of thousands of dollars in maintenance costs,” stated Brian Lloyd, Senior Mechanical Engineer with Queensland Alumina, Ltd. Recognizing the importance of integrated structural and piping analysis to capture more accurate, realistic and safer engineered designs, Brian Lloyd had this to say about their recent purchase of STAAD.Pro, “We have started to use the integrated structural and piping solution and finding significant changes have to be made to both the piping and structural designs to make it safe. And now with STAAD plan to improve this design process“. This investment in combination with Bentley piping and structural analysis tools has not only already paid for itself but allowed them to streamline their mechanical and structural engineering design process.
View the full PowerPoint Presentation, “Use of AutoPIPE at Queensland Alumina Limited (QAL)” by Senior Mechanical Engineer, Brian Lloyd.
For more information on AutoPIPE, visit www.Bentley.com/AutoPIPE.
About Queensland Alumina
Queensland Alumina (QAL) is a US$4B Australian company owned jointly by Rio Tinto Alcan and Russian company Rusal, has remained as one of the world’s largest alumina refinery for over 40 years. Located in Queensland, with a 1000+ employees and producing nearly 4million tonnes of Alumina per year. Safety is of the upmost importance as this refinery has some of the most aggressive processes handling bauxite, hot caustic soda and high pressure steam. Extracting alumina from bauxite is a complicated, energy-intensive process. The ore is first ground into a powder, then placed in vessels and treated by high-pressure steam and caustic agents to dissolve the compound out of the ore. To find out more please visit : http://www.qal.com.au/.
RAM Structural System: True interoperability with the Revit Structure Link
Bentley, the industry leader in comprehensive structural solutions, now delivers true interoperability. Our structural group provides innovative solutions for analysis, design, documentation and BIM, including our Bentley Structural solution which runs on MicroStation. We realize the importance of allowing structural engineers to freely communicate with different facets of the design chain no matter what application or platform is being used.
The Revit link provides bidirectional integration and enables structural engineers to analyze and design their buildings within the RAM Structural System environment. Subsequently, Revit Structure can be used for multi-discipline collaboration as well as documentation.
Kevin Billings, CAD Production Manager with Hart Gaugler & Associates had this to say regarding the link, “I like that the software provides back and forth updates; this saves us a tremendous amount of time. The two way communication is key for us to efficiently implement architectural changes quickly. We can update the RAM and Revit portion at the same time; it works very well for us.”
Our recent eSeminar on the RAM Structural System-Revit Link was a huge success with over 200 in attendance. Find out more and download the RAM Structural System-Revit Link now! You can also view a recording of our live eSeminar, as well as see answers to frequently asked questions regarding this product.
Read the latest press release on Autodesk's and Bentley's Interoperability Agreement.
To learn more about Bentley’s comprehensive structural solutions, visit www.Bentley.com/Structural.
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Meet the team - From Apollo to STAAD.Pro: Meet Ray Curtis
After introducing you to Ray Curtis, Senior Advisory Software Development Engineer for STAAD.Pro and STARDYNE, you will understand why STAAD.Pro is a powerful program capable of accomplishing a myriad of engineering tasks.
Senior Advisory Software Development Engineer for STAAD.Pro and STARDYNE, Ray Curtis, brings with him a world of experience. With Ray’s experience behind STAAD.Pro, the sky is the limit. It is easy to see why STAAD.Pro is such a powerful program capable of accomplishing a myriad of engineering tasks.
After graduating from the University of Illinois in 1964 with a degree in Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering, Ray worked on the Apollo Mission to the moon for North American Aviation Space Division (later a division of Rockwell). His first task was to design a pressure distribution program that would challenge the the command module with “worst-case scenarios”. He oversaw the command and service modules for all of the test and moon flights being built as he helped validated the design.
Ray then joined Mechanics Research where he helped to create STARDYNE (an early commercial FEA program) as part of a CIA contract to monitor the stability of US satellites in space. Ray facilitated the introduction of the first bending plate element to STARDYNE. Furthermore, he created a full set of static and dynamic analysis modules which were used by Aerospace and Nuclear industries on CDC network computers.
Not one to rest on his laurels, Ray worked diligently to get his MS in engineering from UCLA and a MBA from Pepperdine during this timeframe. After porting STARDYNE to Cray, VAX, Sun and yes, even Windows, Ray joined STAAD development (which is now part of Bentley) in 1995. He now has over 40 years of FEM knowledge/experience. Many of the complex yet widely-used features in STAAD.Pro including a master-slave algorithm, missing mass correction, steady-state analysis, buckling analysis and composite modal damping were all introduced by Ray.
Recently Ray was instrumental in incorporating the Advanced Solver and AISC 360-05 Direct Analysis into STAAD.
To find out more about STAAD.Pro visit www.Bentley.com/STAAD.Pro.
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In our last newsletter, we had given you this puzzle:
"Which one of the following bending moment diagrams correctly depicts the loading condition below? The left column is fixed and the right column is pinned and there is a concentrated load at the middle of the beam."
The correct answer for our puzzle is A!
163 readers took part in the challenge and 75 (46%) got it right! Congratulations to all of you! The names of the people that answered correctly and agreed to have their names published are:
- John Eddy, SSOE Inc.
- Rodney Alberts, Alberts Engineering Inc.
- Kris O’Donnell, Hahn Engineering, Inc.
- Randall Takahashi, CEA&A
- David Ernest, Metso Minerals
- Thomas Jones, Babcock & Wilcox
- Christian Daniel, Canam Group Ltd.
- Mark Spencer, Boustead International Heaters Ltd.
- Scott Moeder, George Butler Associates
- Juan Carlos Esquivel, JCE Structural Engineering Group
- Ray Logan, Mission Residential LLC
- Doug Fitzpatrick, Fitzpatrick Engineering Group
- Yekta Kavasoglu, YKA Consulting Engineers, Inc.
- James Koger
- Jerry Danison, Archer Daniels Midland Company
- Florian Bechtold, GAI Consultants
Special kudos to David Cooper of Cooper Structural Engineers, Inc., who spotted our deliberate mistake in the question!
New Challenge - not structural, but interesting none the less!
Into a regular glass tank, 8 small steel balls are placed. Then the tank is filled with water so that the top of the water is level with the very top of the 8 steel balls.
The 8 balls are removed and replaced with 1 larger Steel Ball (into the same tank with the same water, none is lost).
The larger Steel Ball is submerged in the water to exactly half of its diameter.
Which is true:
a.) The larger steel ball is exactly twice the diameter of the smaller ones.
b.) The diameter of the larger steel ball is less than twice the diameter of the smaller ones.
c.) The diameter of the larger steel ball is greater than twice that of the smaller ones.
d.) Cannot be determined.
Volume of Sphere = 4/3( Pi) r3
Pi = 3.141592653589793 (approx)
Submit your answer here!
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Welcome to Be Communities – where the world’s infrastructure communities come together to connect, communicate, and learn from each other!
Join one of the Structural Engineering Communities, for instance the Bentley Structural Team. Exchange ideas and discuss technical issues in our forums, such as the Structural Analysis and Design forum. And do not miss out on such popular blogs as the Collaboration Corner or the Bentley Structural Team blog!
Be Communities is also the location of an ever growing Wiki, where you can create and maintain reference content that you can use as a resource of knowledge and learning.
Everybody at Bentley is very excited about Be Communities, please come and join us today!
As always, we welcome your comments and we love to hear from you - share your opinions, ask for help or request a demo of one of our products.
Until next time!
The Bentley Structural Team
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