Substation Structure Design using STAAD Pro

[oengineer]

I am working on a single-phase bus support for a substation. I am trying to model the insulator in STAAD. The insulator is made of porcelain material and rest on top of a HSS column. What is the best the best way to model the insulator in STAAD so that the loads for the bus items sitting on top of the insulator are transferred to the HSS column. What type of member should be used for the insulator? Any suggestions/comments are appreciated.

 

[SethGuthrie]

Maybe if you could provide a sketch of what you are designing it would help. My assumption is that you will want to model the whole thing out of small plates.