What is the best method to model a grade beam or foundation beam in stadd pro? is it to model the beam as prismatic section or as an area elements or may be solid element?
Using beam elements and using prismatic section ( PRIS YD ..ZD .. )
Thanks Sye, in STAAD Pro verification example they used area element, why is that?
The verification example was created to show how the plate analysis results match with the textbook example. If finding out the stresses and displacements are the goals of the analysis, modeling with plates or solids is OK but typically you would be interested in finding out moments and shears and possibly carry out a reinforcement design for the grade beams as well. For doing so, modeling with beam elements is much more suitable as you cannot get these results directly from plates or solids.