Modeling Custom Shapes in STAAD.

Pro 2007

By

RAM/STAAD Solution Center

6 February 2008

STAAD.Pro section database contains sections from seventeen different countries. For the U.S., design codes, in addition to the AISC section steel profiles, American Steel Joist, cold formed steel, timber and aluminum databases are also provided with STAAD.Pro. If a new section profile is introduced in the market or a very old AISC section is missing in the section database, the user has the power to modify the existing section profile tables by using the Tools>Modify Section Database menu command. In some instances the user may have an odd section profile that is not contained in the standard section database. These types of sections can be modeled using the General Section feature in STAAD.Pro. A General Section can be defined by clicking on the Tools>Create User Table menu command. The Create User Provided Table dialog box will appear. Using this dialog box, the user may create a table with the General section type as shown in Figure 1.

Unfortunately, profile points from a dxf file cannot be imported into this dialog box. One may import the points into STAAD.Section wizard from a dxf file and then transfer those points to the profile table shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2: L section Profile Points

The engineer may type in the profile points in the profile point table shown in Figure 2. Let us type the following points in the section profile table:
Table 1: Section Profile Points

1 2 3 4 5 6

Z (in) 0 0 1 1 4 4

Y (in) 0 10 10 3 3 0

Figure 1: The General Section Table 1 contains a section with the name UPT

After the Compute Section Properties button is clicked, STAAD.Pro will calculate all the section properties as shown in Figure 2. Once the structural geometry is created in STAAD.Pro, the engineer could assign the custom property to the respective members by clicking on the User Table button located in the General -> Property control tab item data area shown in Figure 3. The User Property Table dialog box will appear with the custom sections listed in the table. The engineer has to select the custom section and assign it to the members in his/her STAAD.Pro model.

For example, let us assume that the user wanted to create a custom L shaped section in STAAD.Pro. The user would have to click on the Add New Property button in the Create User Provided Table dialog box and as a result the General dialog box will appear in the STAAD.Pro interface as shown in Figure 2. The user may type in the section properties or may request STAAD.Pro to calculate the section properties if he/she had the profile points ready.

stress diagram for the L-sections as illustrated in Figure 6.

Figure 3: The User Table button in the Properties Dialog box

Figure 6: Combined Axial and Bending Stress Diagrams

Figure 4: The User Property Table

STAAD.Pros 3D rendered mode will be able to render the L-Shapes as shown in Figure 5 using the profile points provided by the user.

Figure 5: L Sections are seen in 3D-Rendered Mode in STAAD.Pro

The engineer will be able to see all the analytical results in the post-processing mode. He/She will be able to see a combined axial and bending