structural analysis software 1

[MillR]

I am looking to adopt new structural analysis software for a small structural team primarily doing multistory steel and concrete buildings in a variety of locations in the United States and am looking for suggestions. I am leaning toward RISA or RAM, although it has been a long time since I've personally run analysis software. I've searched and this question has certainly been answered before, but nothing recent. Thank you in advance.

 

[waytsh]

I am a big fan of RISA. Easy to use and although the price has gone up a little it is still manageable for a small firm like mine.

 

[kc9508]

Both programs are very powerful, but I'm partial to RISA as well. Especially for steel and concrete building types. I haven't had great results using them for other types of structures (i.e. wood), but I typically use Enercalc or a similar "simpler" program for that type of work.

 

[KootK]

You hear a lot of complaints these days regarding RAM's licensing model. That said, I love ConcePT for post-tension slab work.

I like to debate structural engineering theory -- a lot. If I challenge you on something, know that I'm doing so because I respect your opinion enough to either change it or adopt it.

 

[MillR]

Thanks. The Bentley licensing issues put me off RAM as well. And I have spreadsheet calculations for all small and/or wood elements. I appreciate the answers, I wasn't sure if in the last few years something earth shattering had happened in structural analysis ... not too surprised to see it hasn't.

 

[KootK]

For what it's worth, I also consider RISA to be one of better packages when it comes to wood design.

I like to debate structural engineering theory -- a lot. If I challenge you on something, know that I'm doing so because I respect your opinion enough to either change it or adopt it.

 

[Budding_SE]

Risa and Enercalc are great if you want to do simple quick analysis.
If you are using Revit/BIM, you might want to look into Tekla Structural Designer (7000$ per year). Ram is okay when it comes modelling. Tekla SD is great with interoperability with Revit.

 

[SteelPE]

I am very familiar with the RAM licensing model, how is the RISA model different from RAM?

 

[jayrod12]

Risa is still standalone or network licenses I believe. Once you've bought the program, you can use it as long as you want. It also will not allow you to open it on more computers than the network key is configured for. There are never surprise charges because too many people at our office are using it at once.

There's probably many more differences, I use RISA and haven't used any of the Bentley programs so I'm only relaying the information as I've understood from previous threads.

 

[TehMightyEngineer]

I'll throw RISA out there as well. I've used RISA and STAAD and find RISA to be the superior program for sure.

Professional and Structural Engineer (ME, NH)
American Concrete Industries

http://www.americanconcrete.com

 

[DETstru]

I'm partial to RAM for steel buildings. I've often imported my Revit model, made modifications as needed, completed a preliminary gravity & lateral analysis, then sent it back to Revit within a few hours work for small/medium sized steel buildings.

RAM really shines when you have fairly "regular" structures. Like multistory offices, MOB's, etc. Where it falters is when you have "trickier" structures (hip roofs, horizontal braces, odd lateral element configurations). For those types of structures I go to RISA.

I have also used RAM for multistory concrete frame buildings. It works well and the beam schedules it exports to CAD are a HUGE timesaver. Though for concrete shear/core wall buildings I prefer ETABS (RAM's analysis is much slower).

 

[SethGuthrie]

At DETstru, we made some improvements for Analysis time in the last couple of releases of Ram Frame, in particular for the eigenvalue analysis of meshed models that was the bottleneck in older versions.
I'm pretty sure we will be revising aspects of the licensing this year to alleviate a lot of complaints about that too.
At MillR, if you have any other questions about Ram Structural System (or Ram Elements or Concept), feel free to contact me via forum or directly.

 

[Agent666]

We've recently ditched all Bentley products due to their unfair licensing practices and some quite large bills for occasional overusage (which we managed to get written off after refusing to pay them). Note if you leave their licensing subscription scheme they will give you node locked versions of their programs if you owned them before going onto their license to print money 'scheme'. They say this is not technically possible when under the scheme because their licensing model relies on it for fleecing you, yet they manage to do it when you ditch them.

There attitude towards the customer really sucks, so I would strongly suggest you do not go with a Bentley product.

For multi-storey work we pretty much exclusively use ETAB's. Price has been hiked up a lot in the last few years, but it seems to be the standard around these parts.

 

[TehMightyEngineer]

I honestly don't understand how Bentley ever thought that their licensing system would do anything other than alienate their customers.

Professional and Structural Engineer (ME, NH)
American Concrete Industries

http://www.americanconcrete.com

 

[SteelPE]

Yes, I forgot about the elicensing system Bentley now offers. I'm a one man shop but sometimes need sub consultants to help me with my work. When I called about getting updates to some programs they warned about this new system and being charged for additional services. Kind of put me off from purchasing their software (well, that and the initial purchase price/immediate maintenance fee). The older system of locking the program while in use seemed to make sense and seemed to be fair to everyone. But the new system of allowing anyone and everyone to access the software at once only to charge them seemed odd to me.

I will say though, I have used their system before (at another company) and have found it useful to model building on. I have been hesitant to switch to RISA as it would take me a while to learn their software.

 

[Seppe]

RISA all day. I have used RAM/Bentley stuff a good bit in the past, but I always felt it was a bit clunky and restrictive with regards to user interface.

Literally the only thing missing from RISA is a platform for post-tensioned concrete design. Outside of that one blemish, the coupling of the stalwart RISA-3D with RISAFloor ES and their foundation and steel connection modules is very intuitive and flexible.

They have a great technical support team to boot.

 

[sandman21]

Hate RAM and would pick nearly any other program.

If you are doing lots of multistory steel and concrete buildings, you should look into ETABS, better than RISA when it comes to dynamic modelling. If you do go with RISA you will also need to get RISAFloor

 

[Angre]

Hello MillR,
I would suggest that any software that you are going to use should have two characteristics for effective post analysis
1)Selective reporting about the design, selectiveness being defined by the user and not a drop down list supplied by the package
2)Some sort of easy scripting language to change the model on the run.
I have found that these capabilities, though not as impressive as plots, go a long way in shortening the design time.

 

[JoshPlumSE]

sandman -

Just curious what's so much better about ETAB's dynamics? Obviously, they've got a lot of very advanced non-linear and push-over capabilities. But, I'm more interested in what you use it for regularly where the dynamics are superior. I want to make sure that the truly important stuff makes its way onto the RISA "To Do" list.

 

[Angre]

I found SAFI , a canadian software to be a good candidate for small to medium scale firms.
The user manual is compact and written in a nice engaging style.