Applies To
	Product(s):	STAAD Foundation Advanced
	Version(s):	ALL
	Environment:	ALL
	Area:	Gereral Foundation
	Subarea:	Pile Cap
	Original Author:	Sye Chakraborty, Bentley Technical Support Group

I modeled a steel structure and wish to create a pile-arrangement plus pilecap in STAAD Foundation Advanced. Can I import the support reaction from STAAD.Pro and design the pile cap in STAAD Foundation Advanced? Do I need to model the pilecap in STAAD.Pro ? Can STAAD Foundation Advanced design the pile cap by itself or do I have to start with a STAAD.Pro model?

Support reactions from STAAD.Pro can be directly taken into STAAD Foundation Advanced using the Foundation Design tab within STAAD.Pro, following which, a pile arrangement needs to be generated and then the pile cap can be designed in STAAD Foundation Advanced. For this process there is no need to model pile caps in STAAD.Pro.

If you are asking whether STAAD Foundation Advanced can be used as a standalone application for design of pile caps, then the answer is also yes. For that you have to manually enter the column locations and then enter the column reaction loads in STAAD Foundation Advanced. If you are modeling the superstructure in STAAD.Pro for analysis, then getting support reactions from STAAD.Pro would spare you the effort of defining the column points and re-entering the loads in STAAD Foundation Advanced and so the process would be a lot faster.