Structural Engineering Software Programs 5

[Apllonia Smith]

Hey there,

I am Smith,
I have points and question to ask,

There are many Structural Engineering Software Programs available, which can easily be found by performing a google search. For buildings and other building-like structures. But, I need a software with a straightforward interface, that continually updates to include the latest theories, and possibly is the standard in the structural engineering industry.
Please anyone suggest to me ?

 

[RWW0002]

Your whitebox software sounds good to me. I have some old .DOS based stiffness-maxtix software somewhere around here somewhere that would be a good starting point for a 2D analysis. I have thought about digging it out from time to time for verification purposes, but it takes longer to figure out how to get it to run on Windows 10 than it takes to run the frames..
And your price point is around 10% of what I am currently paying for the maintenance only for one of our software packages..

 

[KootK]

However, I still hate the idea that a software that I have become comfortable with can suddenly change without my knowledge.

I agree. And, as much as I like the cloud platform, I suspect that will only make this worse. As, hopefully, the eventual purveyor of a cloud platform, I've been struggling to envision how this would be dealt with. When old version maintenance is no fancier than letting you keep your old, local copy of the software, no problem. I could see trying to maintain older versions of a cloud based tool becoming quite cumbersome, though, from a development standpoint. In some respects, the tools being perpetually updated is intended to be one of the advantages. Perhaps, whenever a tool is updated, a non-updated version just gets sealed off in the vault someplace for the use of folks wanting to use it. Over the course of a decade or two, the overhead of keeping all that running could be tricky.

 

[Ron247]

Dang, I had forgot all about "Kootware" and its clothing line of hats and shirts called "KootWear". But in changing to WhiteBox, I cannot envision the clothing line anymore. All I can see is some white Doris Day or Jackie O PillBox hats. For this reason, and the fact this indicates my age, in my best Shark Tank voice, "I am out".

 

[KootK]

Ha! There shall remain a special "KootWare" backdoor into Whitebox for the special people. I also do not want to forgo the KootWear swag opportunities that were developed in the other thread. Plus, "Whitebox" utterly lacks personality. Almost literally vanilla.

 

[JoshPlumSE]

KootK -

Whitebox vs Blackbox?! Shame on you for using racially charged language in your proposed software ideas.

I'm mostly kidding, of course. I'm not sure that anyone who's using structural engineering software is really looking at these terms and thinking they cause division or drive racial inequality.

That being said, it is definitely true that the big software companies are often contacted about removing such language and terminology from their software. Usually by some large / bureaucratic organization that needs to check off some boxes on some initiative they're doing.

Slaved Degrees of freedom are now often referred to as Constrained degrees of freedom. That makes plenty of sense to me, both terms are easy to understand.
Master joints for diaphragms (or slaved/constrained joints) become primary or main joints instead. I don't like this one quite as much, because I don't think it's quite as clear. But, it's close enough.

Software companies are trying to get rid of terms like "whitelist / blacklist" as well.

The thing that really annoyed me was the Y2K stuff. Companies were acting like the sky was going to fall down if the year printed on their structural calculation said 19100 instead of 2000.

 

[r13]

I wonder I'll see the day with the equality that "black is white, and white is black", and wish I never will. Non-racially charged, non-politically aligned, just feel it is none sense to me.

 

[STrctPono]

That's interesting JoshPlumSE. All the senior level Engineers use the term "Master Slave" and the last time I used RISA (many years ago) that version still used that terminology. MIDAS Civil uses "rigid link" to mean the same thing. We had a young intern in our office last summer and when I used that terminology once with her she looked at me really funny, stopped the conversation, and asked me to explain. Now, every time I say it, I wince a bit.

 

[Ron247]

My output that said 19100 was actually a Y2K issue? That was when I briefly thought I had perfected time travel. Incidentally, I have almost completed my time travel ability going forward in time but am not close in going backwards. I can go forward at the rate of 1 year per year. Next will be to improve the forward rate.

 

[Ron247]

Master and slave can easily be replaced with Politician and Voter and not offend anyone.

 

[IDS]

This may not be wise, or even ethical, but that's what I'm doing presently.

I can't see anything unwise or unethical about it, quite the reverse.

Just about every major design related structural problem I can think of has been due to someone making a basic incorrect assumption or over-simplification, and that is exactly the sort of thing that is likely to be missed in going through detailed calculations step by step, and likely to be picked up in a fully independent analysis and review.

My preference for design is to use general purpose FEA software for the analysis, and custom spreadsheets for the design. FEA doesn't need to be a "black box"; it actually allows a better view of how a structure will behave than simplified hand calculations (which themselves can be a bit of a black box).

The FEA package I use is Strand7, which is still sold with a one-off fee for a perpetual licence, and annual support/maintenance fee.



Doug Jenkins
Interactive Design Services

http://newtonexcelbach.wordpress.com/

 

[Agent666]

This may not be wise, or even ethical, but that's what I'm doing presently.

As someone who does a lot of peer reviews of sometimes large and complex structures. I wish more people would objectively look at their results like this. It would make my job a whole lot easier as would avoid me asking things that seem obvious to me after 10 minutes with their drawimgs/calculations/analysis models, usually after they've spent 6 months producing them...

 

[KootK]

Thanks for the confidence vote on my QC efforts gentlemen. It's a comfort to receive that feedback from some highly respected cohorts. I guess that I'm not as much of an outlier as I'd feared.

Whitebox vs Blackbox?! Shame on you for using racially charged language in your proposed software ideas.

Nice... thanks for the warning Josh. Unfortunately, GreyBox just doesn't get the job done in quite the same way. When vetting Whitebox as a name, the main feedback concern that I received was in the realm of the lewd and pornographic. It just goes to show: more eyes on a thing = better. Always.

 

[JoshPlumSE]

When vetting Whitebox as a name, the main feedback concern that I received was in the realm of the lewd and pornographic.

I must be getting old.... When I was younger, I would have caught any potential sexual reference immediately. Now I'm the guy who says something that others snicker. Then I have to ask for an explanation about why it's funny.

 

[Ron247]

Josh, you sounded young until you said "snicker". I think it is in the same era as malarkey and brazen hussy.

 

[flight7]

ClearBox?

 

[KootK]

Transparent Online Structural Design?

That's a pretty bold claim though. Maybe:

Translucent Online Structural Design?

At the same time, I don't want to be seen to be favoring albinos at the expense of other visible minorities.

 

[KootK]

I must be getting old....

Over the weekend, I threatened to block the social game chatting app Discord at the router unless my kids got their social medial addictions under control. You know, full on old man style. As I was walking by a room later, I heard the following kid discussion through the closed door "I can't believe that he thinks he can block something when he doesn't even understand what that something is. He's clueless!".

And, as it turns out, they were kind of right. Distributed network stuff is stupid hard to block unless you're willing to play whack-a-mole with domain names. Cocky weasels never would have challenged a younger KootK's tech skills. I know how to load a dot matrix printer damn it!! WYSIWYG is for the weak!

 

[oloksy]

I use staad pro and i love it

 

[r13]

Finally got one vote for STAAD

 

[Complete_Columns]

I shall spew a little uncomfortable truth, as I know it to be: I no longer feel that it's practical to be doing detailed, line by line verification of design software output

I think this is probably an increasing trend as well. The more comprehensive a software package, the more lines to verify the output, and given that software is only going to get more comprehensive, the more cumbersome and less effective line by line verification will be.

I think the only path forward is different methods of verification. Comparing software with software will probably be not result in errors, provided the software has a reputation, but if that practice becomes widespread engineers aren't going to learn how any of the software actually works.


Complete Columns

https://www.completecolumns.com/