structural analysis software 2

[feidong]

My company is a small structural engineering office. I am currently searching for a structural analysis software that is user-friendly and does not cost too much. Do you guys have any recommendations among the following:
1. RISA3D - RISA Technologies
2. Visual Analysis by IES, Inc.
3. SAP2000 by CSI Inc.
4. Real3D-Analysis by Computations & Graphics, Inc.

Thanks

 

[Ron]

RISA 3D...excellent

 

[jayrod12]

Seconded for RISA3d. However I generally only deal with low rise buildings with wind governing all lateral design.

 

[neffers]

I would check out Bentley's RAM Elements as well.

 

[jayrod12]

I would bet you'll get some comments from some of the people around here about bentley's licensing. It is expensive and it is mandatory to upgrade when the new ones come out. The nice thing about RISA is when you've paid for your license you own that copy and can use it forever (in theory) however the maintenance (and tech support) runs out after a certain time period (1 or 2 years, I don't remember) if you don't pay to keep it.

 

[Gumpmaster]

Visual Analysis is quite easy to use. IES is a small company and very responsive to users.

 

[stevenspm]

Granted this is about a year ago, if I remember correctly when I was talking to Bentley about there monthly payment program the sale person I talked to mentioned that is would be possible to buy it and it would be yours to use but to update you would need to have a maintenance/tech support service. Which seems to be the same as mentioned above for RISA.

 

[Guest262653]

I've used SAP2000 extensively and recommend it with no issues. It does everything I need it to do (buildings, industrial structures, culverts, retaining walls, linear buckling, seismic, steel, concrete, etc...). The design capabilities aren't brilliant but are OK for preliminary design (this is not an issue for me as I wouldn't trust any program blindly designing elements, so I do most of the final design in Excel anyway).
It also has OAPI capabilities that might come handy if you want to automate tasks using VB or VBA.

 

[BadgerPE]

Sure would be nice if the mods could create a sticky at the top of the forum entitled "Structural Analysis Software". I swear this topic is posted monthly, if not more frequently.

 

[JoshPlumSE]

Feidong -

There is no substitute for taking the software for a test drive. They should all be willing to give you a Demo version or trial version of the program. I work for RISA and we will send you out a link for a Demo version of the program if you fill out basic information in the demo request page below.

http://www.risa.com/forms/demo_request.html

Similarly, I've had interaction with CSI and IES where they've given me a time limited / trial version of their software.

I'd be a little bit cautious of Real-3D though. It's just that I've never seen Real-3D at a trade show. Never talked to anyone who used it either.

 

[feidong]

Thank you all for replying. I am test driving these software.

 

[frv]

I'll vote for RAM Elements as well. It is pretty powerful and flexible and has some useful built-in modules that simplify some common analyses. You can also customize it fairly easily.

I don't have any objection to RISA; it just seems a bit more "black box" than Elements (though that really may be more a result;t of me having moved away from RISA a few years ago). I do think RISA has a better interface.

 

[MrHershey]

RISA is great for small stuff. Very flexible software.

I tend to prefer ETABS (or SAP) for more robust finite element stuff. Especially for shear wall buildings, though my understanding is RISA has improved a lot in that regard.

And second the licensing warning from Bentley noted above. They've been pulling some nonsense recently. Probably not an issue for a small company with a handful of engineers but can become an issue for bigger companies with many people trying to access what used to be a finite amount of licenses. Will just let you in even if your purchased licenses are already in use and then send you a bill for the overusage a couple months later. But they don't give you an option to lock people out if all licenses are in use and they don't even give you the option to see who is currently using a license like they used to. And they also pool by the hour. So even if employees do coordinate, say one person exits the program at 1:15 PM and the other enters at 1:20 PM, that still counts as two concurrent users because they pool all uses in the 1 PM-2 PM hour.

 

[lsmfse]

We are long time RISA users
I want to double what MrHershey said. Bentley started this "overage" charges. I never knew about it. I found out today that I have been logged in since October!
We rarely use the module they claim we are using. Spent an hour with tech support and they haven't been able to resolve the issue yet.
We'll see what happens.

 

[CELinOttawa]

Some of you may recall that I am *not* a fan of abentley's recent shenanigans, but this

And they also pool by the hour. So even if employees do coordinate, say one person exits the program at 1:15 PM and the other enters at 1:20 PM, that still counts as two concurrent users because they pool all uses in the 1 PM-2 PM hour.

is disgusting and all but criminal.

 

[MrHershey]

Re: CELinOttawa

They spell it out here: Link

I called them out on it for an overage they sent me. They claimed we were overusing by two licenses for that quarter and essentially asked for what amounts to half a yearly license (two licenses x one quarter = half a year).

Actually dig into the logs and many of the days they considered as 'overuses' were not. In many cases we may have been one license over, but it typically was for a time period of like 15 minutes out of a 24 hour period. Someone jumped in, checked something quick, jumped back out. The instances where they claimed we overused by four typically weren't actually overlapping. Someone in Midwest is finishing their day at the same time that someone in Australia (9 hours behind/15 hours ahead) is starting theirs. So if Midwest logs off at 5:15 PM and Australia starts up at 8:45 AM, you get dinged for two usages during that hour.

Fun part about this is they changed it without notifying anybody. They changed the license agreement after we had already signed our yearly extension, we never agreed to what they're currently doing.

 

[CELinOttawa]

This:

They changed the license agreement after we had already signed our yearly extension, we never agreed to what they're currently doing.

Is something we all, as a profession, need to resist. It is about as fair as your average EULA, and not at all in keeping with natural justice.

That's final for us: We will never choose a recurring charge based software model... And here I've been getting tempted to allow the drafters to get the monthly cost model AutoCad. They can forget it!

 

[BUGGAR]

Thank you.

I just talked my management out of considering Bentley.

R.

 

[qwerty2009]

If it is kinda small company you can use Inventor pro or Solidworks... I know they are bit wee costy but do reduce time spent on calc and fab drawings ....at least keep you away from modelling something twice for drafting and analysis purposes... But only for analysis purpose Staad had been better till Robot structural analysis cropped up