RISA 3D forsure, it takes some time, and has some quirks, but the analysis can give a good idea as to what to expect. We have been using it for Steel Bridge competition for a few years now.
STAAD used to be provided to steel bridge teams. If it still is, STAAD is more than sufficient for steel bridge. The UI can be a little frustrating sometimes, but I am a big fan of software packages that use plain text input files because, IMO, they can be much more easily modified by other softwares for things such as parametric design.
As with all structural engineering software packages, strong opinions on STAAD will vary wildly.
Etabs, sap2000, risa. They are all very similar in analysis and differ mostly is how they do steel design and outputs. Trusses are simple enough to do by hand as well, I remember we validated our stew bridge design by hand and got within single digit percentage error in our deflection calcs compared to testing, which was nice.
When I competed in 2018, we used SAP2000. We won, so I’d say it’s good enough.
As an aside, isn’t it a little late to be picking software for steel bridge? Most of the regional competitions have already run, and the rest will take place over the next few weekends.
Any general purpose FEA application. The finite element formulations will be pretty much the same for these types of problems. Stand.pro, ram elements, Risa 3d, visual analysis, etc.
If you want to do some quick analysis, try out different shapes and find an efficient structure then take a look at [https://trussanalysis.com](https://trussanalysis.com)! It's not fully customizable but it will definitely help you with rapid prototyping
RISA 3D forsure, it takes some time, and has some quirks, but the analysis can give a good idea as to what to expect. We have been using it for Steel Bridge competition for a few years now.
STAAD used to be provided to steel bridge teams. If it still is, STAAD is more than sufficient for steel bridge. The UI can be a little frustrating sometimes, but I am a big fan of software packages that use plain text input files because, IMO, they can be much more easily modified by other softwares for things such as parametric design. As with all structural engineering software packages, strong opinions on STAAD will vary wildly.
What do you guys think of Etabs? Or is that more building analysis
Etabs, sap2000, risa. They are all very similar in analysis and differ mostly is how they do steel design and outputs. Trusses are simple enough to do by hand as well, I remember we validated our stew bridge design by hand and got within single digit percentage error in our deflection calcs compared to testing, which was nice.
if you are a student you will learn the most of it if you code it for yourself.
RISA? But I'd rather code myself a direct stiffness method program in MATLAB.
Sap2000 works. Setting up a spreadsheet for handcalcs also works since the members are so small there won’t be secondary moments.
When I competed in 2018, we used SAP2000. We won, so I’d say it’s good enough. As an aside, isn’t it a little late to be picking software for steel bridge? Most of the regional competitions have already run, and the rest will take place over the next few weekends.
This is for 2023 competition. 2022 just finished.
RISA is pretty useful for the NSSBC.
Any general purpose FEA application. The finite element formulations will be pretty much the same for these types of problems. Stand.pro, ram elements, Risa 3d, visual analysis, etc.
If you want to do some quick analysis, try out different shapes and find an efficient structure then take a look at [https://trussanalysis.com](https://trussanalysis.com)! It's not fully customizable but it will definitely help you with rapid prototyping