https://communities.bentley.com/products/ram-staad/f/ram-staad-forum/89468/mat-foundation-designHi, I am designing a mat foundation supporting a steel structure. I am asigning the loads from the columns as NODAL LOAD. I do not think this is the right approach because I have a base plate that distributes the load from the column uniformlyen-USTelligent Community 12https://communities.bentley.com/thread/254592?ContentTypeID=1Sun, 11 Aug 2013 09:05:35 GMT6dad98f5-dbc9-4c4d-a9ba-e9da8dc6aa8e:4aa6aab6-f7f8-4b4d-b21e-ca8fb2d465f5Mustafa Bhanpurawala<p>Identify the elements under the base plate of the steel column and apply the loads on these elements as pressure load.</p><div style="clear:both;"></div>https://communities.bentley.com/thread/254562?ContentTypeID=1Sat, 10 Aug 2013 03:30:05 GMT6dad98f5-dbc9-4c4d-a9ba-e9da8dc6aa8e:2a55995d-423a-4c0e-b5c4-eff16cf88f9eSye<p>The dimensions for the dummy members can be anything. You only need to make them very stiff and you would do that by increasing the E to say 100 times that of the material you are using for the rest of your structure. These members would lie in the plane of the mat and would radiate from the point of application of the load to the neighboring joints in your mat.</p><div style="clear:both;"></div>https://communities.bentley.com/thread/254476?ContentTypeID=1Fri, 09 Aug 2013 18:00:26 GMT6dad98f5-dbc9-4c4d-a9ba-e9da8dc6aa8e:8f13b3b5-c39d-4243-bea9-22dc5f9b7047ingenierobou<p>Sye,</p> <p>Which should be the height of this element?</p><div style="clear:both;"></div>https://communities.bentley.com/thread/254421?ContentTypeID=1Fri, 09 Aug 2013 06:01:41 GMT6dad98f5-dbc9-4c4d-a9ba-e9da8dc6aa8e:89f77937-691f-4605-bd9d-11a88d11aa42Sye<p>Please refer to the last wiki article on the following page</p> <p><a rel="nofollow" target="_new" href="http://communities.bentley.com/products/structural/structural_analysis___design/w/structural_analysis_and_design__wiki/2066.aspx">communities.bentley.com/.../2066.aspx</a></p><div style="clear:both;"></div>