Hi Good Day STAAD GURUs
My questions are:
1. When using the AREA LOAD or FLOOR LOAD to represent the load beeing carried by the slab does STAAD automatically convert those loads to equivalent loads and then automatically impose those equivalent loads to the beams bordering the slab? or do i have to manually solve for the equivalent load then manually impose those loads (from the slab) to the beams. Actually thats what our instructor taught us, manually solve the equivalent load then put in on the beams supporting the slab. but doubt it[*-)]
2. On the command "selfweight -1" does that selfweight include the weight of the slabs even if the slabs were simply modeled as plates?
ex: ....
meter kn
Element Incidences
1 1 2 3 4
Element Property
1 thickness 0.15
3. Attached file shows how to correct improperly connected plates. We added nodes 9 and 10 to beam 1 4 supporting plate 1 to correct the improper connection of plates 2 and 1. Just for discussion purposes lets us consider PLATE 1 before we break it into 3 plates as a TWO WAY slab. After breaking it to 3 slabs, the resulting plates from plate 1 are plates 3 4 and 5. Sir/Ma'am if i'm gonna load these slabs using FLOOR LOAD / AREA LOAD. Do i have to load them individually as one way for plates 3 and 5 then two way for plate 4? or should i just apply the floor load over these plates?
Thanks a lot
Mac
Ram_STAAD,
We appreciate your bringing attention to this topic because if there is a way to make it easier to use, we certainly wish to do that.
My previous question was with the intent of obtaining your suggestion on how an engineer would want the load distribution to be calculated on the individual members of a panel for the situation that I highlighted.
FLOOR LOAD and ONEWAY LOAD are based on widely accepted principles of load distribution. Those principles are based on the load being applied on a zone in which the members that are present create closed boundaries.
But if the loaded area does not conform to that principle (the most recent figure you attached has just 2 lines inside a rectangular shaped loaded area), what rules would an engineer want to use to find the load that each member in that zone should receive? Let us forget about STAAD or DLUBAL or any other software for this argument. If one were to use hand calculations, how should one calculate the load? One method would be to find the total load on that region (Area of that region multiplied by the load intensity) and divide it by the total length of that portion of all the members that lie inside that region. That would yield a uniform distributed load on that portion of those members. But that approach would mean that even members which are on the periphery of that boundary will receive the same load intensity as those that lie in the middle of the zone, something that some engineers may not accept.