There are a few locations in my model where I don't seem to understand the values of Lu for the beam design in Ram Frame. In most locations, I believe it is correct as it matches the perpendicular beam spacing of In some locations it is reporting a value of 0.13 feet, or 0.03 feet, this does not seem realistic to me. Would anyone know if this is an error or some reason behind it? see below for the beam results and floor framing for one instance where this occurs. It is the beam running east-west in red.
The report indicates that the critical station for axial and flexural code checks. Those appear to be different locations, and it would be quite a coincidence to have such tightly spaced brace points in two places. Double check that the unbraced length has not been user-overridden. Also double check the flange bracing criteria.
I have double checked, and everything is set to the global criteria. A lot of these locations are where I had to use the special brace draw feature, the one where you input the length from a selected joint. I am wondering if there was some error there from rounding that is causing this. Maybe there is a slight gab between where the 2 diagonal braces connect to the beam.
That could be. If that is the case you should see multiple nodes number too.
My suggestion, for modeling a Chevron brace in a two story bay, is to constantly measure the distance from the top node from the left hand column (don't reference the left column for the left brace and the right column for the right brace which is instinctual). See also: https://communities.bentley.com/products/ram-staad/w/structural_analysis_and_design__wiki/4027/ram-meshing-and-segmentation-tn