Based on the support calls received by the STAAD.Pro Technical Support Group, Engineers may be interested in exporting their STAAD.Pro models to other modeling and detailing packages available. One way to accomplish this goal is to use the STAAD.Pro CIS/2 export feature.
The CIS/2 export feature the STAAD.Pro is based on the ISO-10303-21 (i.e. Part 21 in short)
STRUCTURAL_FRAME_SCHEMA. This means that STAAD.Pro will only be able to read in CIS/2 files that are produced using the STRUCTURAL_FRAME_SCHEMA and not the AUTOMOTIVE_DESIGN_SCHEMA.
The commonly encountered problem is the absence of physical member definitions in the CIS/2 file generated by STAAD.Pro which will not be readable to other modeling packages. The purpose of this document is to demonstrate how this problem can be resolved by using the physical member feature incorporated in STAAD.Pro V8i and the Steel Designer.
STAAD will allow grouping analytical predefined members into physical members using a special member group PMEMBER.
PMEMBER defines a group of analytical collinear members, with same cross section and material property. To model using PMEMBER, one needs to model regular analytical members and the start grouping those together.
While creating a PMEMBER, the following are the pre-requisites,
1. Existence of the analytical members in the member-list.
2. Selected members should be interconnected.
3. The selected individual members are collinear.
4. Local axis of the individual members comprising the physical member should be identical (i.e. x, y and z are respectively parallel and in same sense).
5. A member in one Physical Member Group should not occur in any other Physical Member Group.
1. Open STAAD.Pro V8i.
2. Open the C:\SPro2007\STAAD\Examp\US\ EXAMP01.STD file.
3. Assume that this file has to be exported to a modeling/detailing software that supports the CIS/2 ISO-10303-21 STRUCTURAL_FRAME_SCHEMA.
4. Simply clicking on File->Export->CIS/2 menu command will not do the job in most cases. If you do click on the File->Export->CIS/2 menu command, the stp file will not be readable in some modeling and detailing and packages due to the absence of physical member definitions.
5. There are two ways you may create physical members in STAAD.Pro. You may simply click on a member and right click on the member. In this example click on column # 1 and right click on the column using the mouse as shown below.
Figure 1: Physical Member Creation
6. You will notice the Form Member option in the dialog box that will appear. Click on the Form Member option. You could use the Auto Form Member tool to form physical memebers automatically.
7. Open the STAAD.Pro editor, using the Edit->Edit Input Command File menu command.
8. Click on the Yes button to save the changes.
9. The input command file will appear as shown below.
Figure 2: Updated Input Command File
10. Try to find the following input command lines in the STAAD editor.DEFINE PMEMBER 1 PMEMBER 111. You may create additional physical members by typing the physical member numbers in the input file using the above syntax.
12. Step #6 and Step #11 are the two ways of creating a physical member definition in STAAD.Pro 2007.Note: For STAAD.Pro 2004 - 2006, you will only be able to create the physical members in the Steel Designer Mode. In this case, the physical member definitions are not stored in the STAAD.Pro input file. The Steel Designer Mode has an Auto Form Members option which can speed up the task of physical member creation. Please create the other physical members as required.
13. Click the Steel Design tab. The Steel Designer will open.
14. Click the New Envelope button.
15. Click the Select all load cases option.
16. Click the Ok button.
17. Click on the member design tab and you will notice the physical members on the right hand side.
18. Engineers using STAAD.Pro 2004-2006 could simply follow the instructions in Step# 6.
19. Click on the Modelling page.
20. After defining all the physical members in your model, click the File->Export menu command. The Export dialog box will appear as shown below.
Figure 3: File Export Dialog Box
21. Select the CIS/2 export option and click the Export button.
22. Save the EXAMP01.stp file at a suitable location and click on the Save button.
23. The Cis2Link dialog box will appear.
24. Click the Export Model button. The progress of the CIS/2 file creation will be displayed in the Cis2Link dialog box. The message Exporting 14 Physical members should appear. This message will only appear if physical members were defined in the STAAD or Steel Designer Interface.
Figure 4: Cis2Link Dialog Box
Dear rozarker,
I have tried this CIS/2 interoperability, but it has some important problems..... .
major of them is A model having double angle or channel profiles exported from Staad.Pro to stp file (CIS/2 file) does not correctly open in staad again (when imported back) and the twin profiles are turned into single angles and channels... please let me know if i am wrong...but this is my observation.....