STAAD.Pro CONNECT Edition V22 Update 3

The principal developments and enhancements that are delivered in this new version of STAAD.Pro are as follows:

Physical Model UI

We have seen a growing adoption of the physical modeller as the primary driver to create the STAAD models and aid in coordinated interoperability. To help with these solutions, the implementation of surfaces have undergone significant development with the introduction of two key enhancements.

- Surface alignment. These allow for a better interop with ISM and rendering in the Physical workflow, although at this time, the offset associated with any offset is not reflected in an offset in the finite elements which will be analysed with the centre of the plate.
- Regions. These provide surfaces with the ability to define varying properties such as thickness or material and define patch loadings on specific zones of the surface. To provide the best analytical solution, the parent surface will be meshed with all the defined regions to ensure optimum connectivity.


Beams with a top alignment and the slab defined with a bottom alignment


A region of thicker concrete that is the base of a machine.

New Reference Line objects have been added. These can be used to define line loads across surfaces to model non-structural line loads such as stud partitions and will be used as meshing constraints, but can also extend as non-structural entities and as such distribute loading onto the primary structure.


A number of engineers have suggested a small but helpful modification on a number of model generation tools that helps in basic confirmation of the entered details. These tools now include a preview option that provides a quick outline of how the model will be modified.


Analytical Workflow

As more complex models are created, the benefit of having a different parts of the model displayed in different windows helps gives engineers the ability to manage the tasks that require precision afforded by such a capability. However this can lead to having to manage a large number of windows, which in the older V8i menu structure was handled by a Window menu option. This has been now introduced in the View ribbon.


Steel AutoDrafter

This has been extended such that it now supports all sections defined from the standard databases including profiles in the Japanese and Chinese databases.


Connection Design

The Connection Design workflow has been enhanced to now include basic and smart templates to the Canadian design code S16-14 as provided in the standalone application RAM Connection V13.12.


OpenSTAAD

The range of capabilities that can be obtained from a module using OpenSTAAD has been extended with new functions

- GetAreaofPlate - which was previously available in the retired OpenSTAAD Results Object, now also available in the application object.
- GetPlateStressAtPoint - a function to determine the value of the stresses at a specific location away from the centre or corners of a finite element plate.
- GetAlphaAngleForSection – a function to return the relationship of geometric and principal axes on an angle profile.

Support for Students

The capabilities available in STAAD.Pro Advanced such as the faster solver, GNL analysis, Advanced Cable analysis, Advanced Buckling etc, have been unlocked to students who operate STAAD.Pro with an academic license.

Additional Modules

STAAD.Pro has grown to be more than just the analysis program, but it also includes a supporting cast of complimentary software that provides extra value to engineering designs. This new release has seen development in some of these modules too, most notably:-

Advanced Concrete Design – RCDC V9.1

STAAD.Pro users who do not have the power of STAAD.Pro Advanced can now perform their interactive concrete design with RCDC. Although this will be a restricted version of RCDC, it will provide the basic design capabilities. However, designs can be extended to use the full capabilities of RCDC by using a STAAD.Pro Advanced or RCDC license. (see RCDC for full details of the capabilities included in both the full and restricted versions)

Finite Element Wall Design

Now leverage the full analytical information of walls modelled as finite elements for the design in the RCDC application rather than having to model them as wide columns.



STAAD Foundation Advanced (v9.2)

Key enhancements include the following, although for a comprehensive summary of the new and extended capacities refer to the blog posting….

- AS3600-2018,
- Implementation of the 2018 edition of the Australian concrete code including amendment 1.
- Isolated footings with offset columns
- Extended isolated footing design capability by providing option to offset the column from the centre of the foundation.
- Enhanced Pedestal Design
- Added to a number of modules and where provided, includes the P-M values for the provided reinforcement.

The following hardware requirements are suggested minimums. Systems with increased capacity provide enhanced performance.

Processor Intel Pentium or AMD processor 3.0 GHz or greater.
Memory 1 GB minimum, 2 GB recommended (4GB for STAAD.Pro Advanced). More memory almost always improves performance, particularly when working with larger models. 4 GB (8 GB for STAAD.Pro Advancd) or more can help speed up solutions for very large complex models with large numbers of load cases.
Video Graphics card supported by OpenGL. See the graphics card manufacturer for latest information on graphics drivers. 256 MB of video RAM or higher is recommended. If insufficient video RAM or no graphics card supported by OpenGL can be found, the application will attempt to use software emulation. For optimal performance, graphics display color depth should be set to 24-bit or higher. When using a color depth setting of 16-bit, some inconsistencies will be noted.
Screen Resolution A minimum screen resolution of 1280x1024 is required, but higher is recommended.
Hard Disk Requirements will vary depending on the modules you are installing. A typical minimum is 500MB free space.
Supported Operating Systems
- Windows 10 (64-bit) - Home, Pro, Enterprise, and Education
- Windows 8.1 (64-bit) - Standard, Pro, and Enterprise
- Windows 7 SP1 (64-bit) - Home Basic, Home Premium, Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate
Note: Windows 7 operating system is supported only if you have its service pack (SP1) installed.
Note: You must have the following Microsoft updates installed on your machine:
- KB4340917 - For Windows 10 Version 1803 Builds prior to 10.0.17134.191. The changes in KB4340917 are built into the August 2018 monthly update of Windows 10.
- KB2999226 - For Windows 7 SP1, Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, and Windows Server 2012
- KB2999226 - For Windows 8.1 (64bit)
- KB2919355 - For Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012
Bentley does not support its software running on Microsoft operating systems versions that Microsoft has "retired".

Additional RAM, disk space, and video memory will enhance the performance of STAAD.Pro.

The minimum amount of physical + virtual memory required by the program is over 600MB. You may need to ensure that adequate amounts of virtual memory are available and that parameters such as paging file sizes should be large enough or span over multiple drives if the free space on any one drive runs low.

Another issue to keep in mind is the location of the TEMP parameter as in the SET TEMP environment variable in Windows. While performing calculations, depending on the structure size, the program may create very large scratch files which are placed in the folder location associated with the TEMP parameter. You may want to point the SET TEMP variable to a folder on a drive that has disk space sufficiently large to accommodate the requirements for large size structures.

You should have a basic familiarity with Microsoft Windows systems in order to use the software.