Does anybody know what is the difference between "Member Load" & "Physical Member Load"

shown in the dialog box Load items?

First, we need to establish the difference between (analytical) Members and Physical
Members.

Analytical Members span from one node to another node. They consist of just a single
beam entity, and they are selected with the Beams Cursor.

Physical Members are a formed assemblage of one or more analytical members that
are interconnected, collinear, have the same local axis orientations, and do NOT occur
in any other Physical Members.

Now it is a little easier to explain that Member Loads are applied to Analytical Members,
and Physical Member Loads can only be applied to Physical Members.

Now comes the interesting part...what happens when you start combining the two
different types of loads?

From our Advanced Steel Design training manual:

"For a Physical Member that has already been assigned a physical member load,
the individual analytical members that comprise the Physical Member adopt the
same member loads as the Physical Member. However, if a member load is
assigned directly to any analytical member of a Physical Member, the analytical
member load is superimposed on the physical member load."

In our Steel Design course, we use examples to illustrate the process of forming (or
auto-forming) Physical Members, along with assigning Member Properties,
Specifications, and Loads. We then go on to demonstrate how shear and bending
moment diagrams can be viewed and data can be extracted for the entire length of a
Physical Member as opposed to working with output results in segmental pieces
corresponding to the constituent Analytical Members.

**
Hi everybody, I have been following this forum for sometime now and i find it very
intresting and very informative.

I have a question regarding Staadpro.

How to mark a single beam (from column to column) instead of parts. I know about
physical member and Steel designer module but it seems very tedious. Can anyone
show a simpler method.

**

You can form physical members while modeling , or you can use the master slave option
to simulate a slab and avoiding in this way to part the beam in multiple members.

**

have you tried the auto form member option in the steel designer module? I believe that
will reduce the time taken to form physical members to a large extent.

**

**
To get displacements and shear/bending diagrams for the entire physical member you
need to define physical members consisting of the analysis segments as indicated in
one of the posts below. After you perform the analysis you can change your cursor to
the physical member cursor and double click on the physical member and the query box
should display the results for the physical member as a whole as opposed to the
individual analysis segments.

**

Analytical member segments can only be part of a physical member if these are
connected, collinear, have the same cross sectional properties, same material
properties & also have the same local axis orientation. Are all of these conditions
satisfied for your model? If so, and still the physical members are not being formed as
desired, please upload your .std file and let us know one set of member numbers for
which this is not working and we will look into it.

**

Physical member command in STAAD

Designs of beams and columns are performed on physical member which are made of one or
more analytical beam parts

The members page is to allow the user to combine together a number of individual beam
elements and create members. All designs are performed on these members.

To create a physical member, use the 'Elements Cursor' to select the parts that combine to form a
design member (hold the 'ctrl' key to select a number of parts) and click on the menu item
'Members->Form member, or the toolbar icon.
Note:
Concrete beam and column designs can only be performed on physical members that have been
created from beam elements (not plate or solid elements).

**