Applies To
	Product(s):	STAAD.Pro
	Version(s):	All
	Environment:	N/A
	Area:	Modeling Solutions
	Subarea:	Supports
	Original Author:	Bentley Technical Support Group

I have a structure with supports marked as elastic foundation. I am getting an error message "Error 0550" when I run the analysis. What could be the cause of this?

There are a few reasons why you will run into this error :

1) The ELASTIC MAT command is meant for generating support spring constants for the support nodes of plate elements. The feature does not work in the case where the support spring generation is requested at nodes which aren't connected to any plate.

STAAD attempts to find the tributary area of each node for which the elastic mat command is specified. It determines this area on the basis of the "influence area" of the nodes. If those nodes are attached to a non-plate entity such as a beam, the corresponding nodes do not have an "influence area".

2) The plates might be inclined to the global horizontal plane (XZ). Presently, the feature works satisfactorily only if the plate is truly horizontal. An inclined plate or a vertical plate cannot presently be handled by this feature.