Using Risa for Timber 1

[Everroux]

This one is a real RISA 3D mystery. I have been trying to use Risa for wood design for nearly a year. The problem I am having which the Risa engineers have not been able to resolve is described below. Is anyone else using Risa for wood and having the same issue?
I select material to use and save in "Material" spreadsheet.
I then use the material in "Section Sets" and save it "Section Sets" spreadsheet.
I create model using the Section set members.
After working with model, saving, opening, the material properties of my model members are changing arbitrarily to other species and I do not notice until it becomes obvious to me that the model is failing or over performing from what I recalled the last time I worked in the file.
Per the Risa engineer's advice, I replace my woodt32 database with the original install database. It works initially but again starts changing wood species on members i already am using in the file/model.

Obviously, the program is useless (too time consuming) to keep checking, re-checking. If I can't get a solution soon, I need a different program.

Thanks for any help on this.

 

[LockeBT]

I have limited exposure to RISA. However the different program I would recommend is RAM from BENTLEY. It does have wood properties in there and you can even create custom properties or shapes. The codes they reference is one cycle outdated but still very much useable (since wood hasn't changed much besides the addition of CLT).

 

[JoshPlumSE]

Everroux -

Some questions that might help me figure this out (noting that I used to be a VP of RISA and I oversaw the tech support group).

1) I assume we're talking about RISA-3D and not RISAFloor or some other program. Correct? Also, it would be helpful to know what version you're running. Noting that I personally have a little more confidence in the older versions (i.e. before the total program re-write of version 18). That's because I knew the ins and outs of the older program like no one else. But, it's also partly because of the huge staff turnover they had around that time... where many of the people who best knew how the program functioned left the company (or were forced out).

2) What type of wood materials are you using?
The reason why I ask this is because RISA has always saved wood materials a little differently. Sawn lumber materials were stored differently from Glu-Lams and engineered lumber and "custom" wood materials. If you ever switch between one type of wood material and another type, I imagine some odd things COULD happen behind the scenes.

3) Are you doing any member "optimization" within the program? By that I mean, are you using the programs internal "design lists" to have the program automatically choose a new or more efficient member size?
The reason why I ask this is because if your "design list" doesn't match up with the type of wood material you're using then it could cause some odd things to happen.

4) Do you have any "before and after" files? Where you had one version of the file that worked properly with the correct type of materials and such. Then you have another one where the materials have changed to the goofy ones you described. If so, then I could take a look at the files themselves. I could do a file compare in Word and see what's changed in the files.... That might show us a "smoking gun" about what's happening. I know they've still got some good support engineers over there. But, I don't know if they would know how to do this as you really have to know what you're looking for.

 

[JoshPlumSE]

Caveat: To be clear about any conflict of interest I have on the subject of RISA.... I worked for RISA for 16 years, but was forced out when Bruce retired and Nemetshek / Amber took over the company. There were some bad feelings on my part with the way things ended. I now work for one of their main competitors (CSI which writes SAP2000, ETABS, Perform, etc). So, I have some definite bias when talking about RISA and RISA's management.

 

[Everroux]

Thank you for the posts. RISA development team has been working on this for awhile. I have done reinstalls on laptop and desktop and using 19.03. The only thing that is a little different is that I install the desktop to drive F instead of C. But that should not be causing this problem.

I am trying to use Southern Pine material and section sets that reference the species. However, the species and design values for the material will change arbitrarily to other species (not consistent on what it changes to) when the files are saved/closed and reopened.

 

[JoshPlumSE]

Wow, Southern Pine is pretty straight forward. The most common (or 2nd most common) wood species to apply.

If you're not mixing that with other wood materials, or other design lists, that really reduces the number of possibilities. Definitely makes the behavior stranger.

I can think of a few things:
a) Try to trim your wood materials down to ONLY the materials you are using. That way, if there is anything weird with one of the non-Southern Pine materials it will not affect your other materials. If there is a "corrupted" material of some sort, then adding a new material or deleting a material could cause some weird behavior.
b) Wood materials are dependent on the code selected and the species both. So, if you make any changes to your selected wood code, that triggers a "behind the scenes" change in the wood material. So, that could end up pointing to a different species if RISA isn't handling the behind the scenes change properly.
c) You've uninstalled and re-installed, right? Did you totally wipe out that RISA direction (and any RISA directory in the Documents folder)? The reason why I ask is because if there is some weird kind of corruption to one of your databases or default settings, that can corrupt the program memory. This sort of thing usually causes a crash (eventually), but possible that it's corrupting your wood material instead.

Installing to the F drive instead of C should be fine.

 

[Everroux]

The reinstall included program uninstall, deleting directories/folders of installed files as well as the local default folders for use in Documents folder, deleting registry references to RISA, etc. Then fresh install. Not mixing any other species for dimensional lumber.