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

How can I check to ensure member connectivity has been properly established in my model?

Members can only be connected to one another at shared, common nodes.  Sometimes this connectivity can be improperly established, despite the fact that everything appears fine visually.  Such instances can lead to unnaturally high displacements, unusual member failure, instability problems, and more, so it's important to avoid them.  If you observe any such phenomenon in your model, or simply want to double-check that things are modeled properly, a powerful tool called "Highlight Intersecting Beams" is at your disposal.  To use it follow these steps:

1.  Select the Beam cursor. 

2. Drag a box encompassing your structure to highlight all the members (or the members of interest.)

3.  Go to the Geometry ribbon at the top of the screen. 

4.  In the Beam section, expand the Intersecting Beams menu downward and select "Highlight Intersecting Beams" option as shown below:

5.  A dialog box will appear into which the desired tolerance can be entered.  In most situations it is advisable to use the default value of 0.03973 inches, so simply click OK.

6.  The graphical display of the structure will update to highlight any members which could potentially have a connectivity problem (i.e. members which "touch" one another but are not segmented such that they share a common node.)  Please note - in some scenarios legitimate problems will be revealed and in others the highlighted members intentionally avoid connectivity and are therefore OK.  For example, consider the structure shown below:

The green arrow points to cross bracing members which are not meant to intersect--a scenario in which the Highlight Intersecting Beams tool identifies members that are correctly modeled and needn't be fixed.  The orange arrow, however, points to a location where two beams should intersect but do not.  Here steps must be taken to correct the connectivity problem. 

7.  If the Highlight Intersecting Beams tool identifies members that aren't connected properly, they can be easily fixed by repeating steps 1 through 5 above and choosing "Intersect Selected Beams" in step 4 instead of "Highlight Intersecting Beams".  This will automatically break up the problematic members to introduce a shared common node and establish the correct connection between them.