STAAD Pro - Civil Engineering Software

Why STAAD Pro? 

We should first understand hat STAAD actually is, STAAD Pro stands for Structural Analysis and Design Program, which consist three key word i.e. Structure, Analysis and Design. The software was originally developed by Research Engineers International in 1997 which was later brought by he Bentley in 2005 which currently owns it. It is defined as Structural Engineering Software product for 3D model generation, Analysis and multi material design. STAAD also helps in designing and analysis the structure in 3D and analysis with different material. With this definition you can have an idea that the software is used to design and analysis of Buildings, Bridges, Transmission towers, Stadiums, Highway structures, Dams and Retaining walls, Turbine Foundation, Containment structures, Tunnels and Culverts. Technically it can do analysis for almost all structures.
Primarily it is used for Design Purpose. You will see that every Civil Engineer uses STAAD because it helps you save time as well as minimizes all mistakes that you do in calculation. It is also used for research purpose which are purely in educational purpose such as in practical or in analysis of structure.

What do you need to know before Starting?

STAAD consist of three basic parts:

• Input

Input in the language of STAAD stands for structure, defining supports and loads, it consist of defining Structure consist of, members which are to be defined with their shape and dimensions, defining material properties is also necessary which considers the Young's modulus and other properties.

Support consist of fixed, moving and hinged supports.

Loads are inputted with load and definition of each load, such as dead load, live load, wind load, etc.

• Output

Output in the language of STAAD stands for Reaction, Displacement, Forces, Stress and Moments. As we know in 3D Structure in which Forces are in Fx, Fy, Fz, Mx, My and Mz. Displacement occurs at node or of members.

Member forces such as axial, shear, bending moment and torsional moment and total effect is summed up to Stresses.

• Design

Design in the language of STAAD stands for Designing for different materials. In general we use it for RCC and Steel Structure.

Finally you should know whether you have given right data input for the structure formation, defining and knowing right support condition. Also you should know some points that you output is as per requirement or not and lastly the designing process with defining each materials property.

Earthquake mode, Advanced Slab Design, Advanced Concrete Design and many more technical and physical modeling can be done in this software with ease

What you don't need to know ?

We don't need to know the calculation work in this process as the STAAD Pro does this work for us right from the input to output and then output to design.

Yes knowledge of Structural Analysis is Recommended but is not Necessary. Your analysis is as good as you data inputs and simple to do for. 

Advantages:

• It covers all the structural elements 
• Ready made models are also present and built with wizard makes it very simple to build the structure
• It is flexible for modeling and analysis the structure
• It covers all the design codes such as US code, British codes, Euro codes, Indian codes, Japanese codes, Canadian and many other available codes
• Material made of steel, stainless steel. concrete and aluminium can be used and analysis can be done
• We get shear and moment values very easily
• The questions in placement interviews some time involves use of STAAD Pro

Disadvantages:

• Analysis of a complex structure is tedious to work with
• Need more time to classify the details
• Limitation in model such containing curved boundary such as parabolic beam, curved beams, cannot be modeled effectively and analysed efficiently