RE: Member offset consideration in Model

Sye — Fri, 10 Jul 2020 22:33:47 GMT

Member offsets are used to account for any extra forces/moments resulting from member/element centers not being aligned. A typical example is when you have a beam supporting a deck. Typically in an analytical model, you would model with beam and plates at the same elevation or in other words having the centers at the same level. However in reality the beam center line would be at a certain offset with respect to the center of the deck and that effect can be modeled by applying offsets to the start and end of the beam members. Applying offsets along the member local x axis to the start and end of beams and braces, to cut these off at the face of their respective supporting members, are other instances where offsets are also typically used.