Tekla Structural Designer 2020 SP4 Update

General & Modeling
- New Line and Area Ancillaries - application of loading from ladders, stairs, pipework etc
- New Inactive Members
- New Lateral Force Resisting System Wall Type - Shear Only Walls

Interoperability
- Enhanced Grasshopper Live Link - Design Results and Reporting

Analysis & Results
- Dynamic Analysis - Wind Tunnel Data Report Generation
- Walls - Distributed Wall Reactions

Design
- Timber Design - Comprehensively Enhanced Timber/ Wood design using Tekla Tedds 2020 - US & Eurocode
- Steel Design - New Patterning of Eccentricity Moments
- Minimum Design Forces & Rounding Increment
- Steel Design - Compound Section Design - Indian Head Code
- Concrete Design - Pile Punching Checks on Mat Foundations - Eurocode and US Head Codes

[TSD-7035] - Shear only walls - these were introduced in the 2020 first release (version 20.0.0.129 March 2020). However, the initial modeling formulation for these had the limitation of failing to report the vertical ‘push-pull’ effects at the ends of the panel that would be expected to be present to resist overturning. Due to the potential for mis-use and mis-understanding this caused, the option to use shear only walls was accordingly removed in the 2020 SP2 release (version 20.0.2.33 May 2020).

- This issue has been resolved in this release and use of shear only walls reinstated.

[TSD-2529] - Wind Wizard - Finland (Eurocode) Head Code - for Terrain category 0 (Sea), the calculated peak velocity pressure qp was incorrect and too low, thus producing wind loads which were not conservative. Loads for other Terrain categories were not affected.

- This issue is fixed in this release. Note that for existing models with this circumstance, the Wind Wizard must be run again to correct the peak velocity pressure qp value.

Highlights
- New Line and Area Ancillaries - application of loading from ladders, stairs, pipework etc
- New Inactive Members
- New Lateral Force Resisting System Wall Type - Shear Only Walls

Enhancements and Fixes
- A number of additional fixes which are not detailed explicitly here are also made to improve general performance and stability. An example of this is given directly below:
. [TSD-5746] - Composite Beams and Concrete Beams - significant improvements are made to the calculation process for both the effective width of composite beams (both floor and natural frequency) and flange widths of concrete beams. This improves the performance particularly for very large models with 1000’s of beam spans:
.. Composite beams - this primarily impacts the time taken to populate the Properties Window for a selection of beams - a selection of many beams in larger models which previously could occupy a few minutes now takes a matter of seconds.
.. Flanged concrete beams - this impacts the time taken for analysis and design and can result in an improvement in performance (in terms of reduced overall analysis and design time) of 2-3 times or more.
[TSD-4943] - Sub Structures - further to recent enhancements to the creation and management of Sub Structures, additional enhancements have been made in this release so that members created/edited/copied/moved while working in a Sub Structure view are retained in the Sub Structure.
[TSD-4890] - Isolated Foundations - when the base level of an isolated foundation is moved, the current foundation along with support moves to the new level where in previous releases it would be deleted. This applies to foundations of; columns, walls and portal frame columns.
[TSD-3672, 7377] - Steel Beams - Plated Fabrication - different types of plated beams can be modeled, including those used in proprietary systems (such as Westok and Fabsec]. Previously, whenever there was a change in plated beam fabrication, the default section size would be applied. This behavior is improved in this release to retain the dimensions of the beam section in this circumstance thus enabling a more convenient workflow.
- If the corresponding section does not exist in the Steel section database, it is created on the fly (in the model) and can be added to the local database at the engineer’s discretion by reviewing the new sections in the model (via Home > Materials > Model).
- Note that the same section size - namely the one from the first span - will be assigned to all spans of multi-span plated beams when changing fabrication.
[TSD-6831, 6834] - FABSEC Fabrication - Openings - elongated openings can now be defined in beams set to the FABSEC fabrication option, as illustrated below. Elongated openings are also imported/ exported correctly when conducting integration with the FBEAM program (for more on this see Export to and import from FBEAM).
- The Web opening dialog features automated validation checks that the elongated opening satisfies recommended dimension limits, as for existing opening shapes. As part of this enhancement, for all openings a warning triangle icon is now displayed rather than an error icon for dimensions that exceed recommended limits but can still be OK’d (at the engineer's discretion).


- Note that, prior to this release, such openings were handled using a UDA - this method is now removed and the UDA no longer used. Any existing models containing equivalent elongated openings can be updated by re-importing the appropriate FBeam .xml file.
- Elongated openings are not valid for other fabrication types, however they will be retained if this is changed from FABSEC. Hence new validation is added to check for this circumstance and a validation error will be reported for it as shown below.


[TSD-5578] - Databases - as noted in the Installation section above, this release introduces automatic updating of your local Databases, so it is no longer necessary to do this manually. This process works as follows:
- Providing all databases can be updated automatically without user intervention, when this release is first run then the updates are applied and a message is displayed stating "updating to latest database versions" as shown below. On successful completion this closes and the program will open.


[TSD-7194] - Timber Columns - Splices can now be introduced into timber column stacks in the same manner as for steel columns (via the stack properties) to enable having different section sizes above/ below the splice.

Section Properties:
[TSD-5618] - Timber - the major and minor Shear Area values for rectangular Timber sections are revised to (5/6)*Ag from the previous 0.5xAg (where Ag = Gross section area). This change aligns the shear area value with that used by Tedds. Note the following:
- The shear area affects only the component of deflection from analysis due to shear deformation and is not used elsewhere by the program. Moreover the proportion of the gross area used to calculate the shear area - commonly termed the “form factor” - is essentially an estimate and different references on elastic theory may differ on the value for various section shapes. The factor of 5/6 is commonly accepted for rectangular sections and elastic behavior.
- Since shear deflections are inversely proportional to the shear area and - for normally proportioned beams - usually account for a smaller proportion of overall displacement, the previous smaller 0.5xAg value would have produced a generally minor overestimate of the shear component of deflections only, hence this update will produce a reduction in deflections of a similar order.
- To update the shear area values for existing models, go to Home > Materials > Model > Sections then select the timber section(s) listed and select “Update from Database”.
[TSD-5427] - Steel - the names of Continental UB “350x175” sections (Nominal depth D = 350 mm and nominal breadth B = 175), have been corrected from the previous “300x175” name according to the manufacturer's catalog. This change is relevant for the regions of Singapore and Malaysia. Note that the issue relates to the name only - the section values were correct per the manufacturer's catalog for “350x175” sections.
[TSD-3992] - Review View - Slab Reinforcement - the legend for Show/Alter State > Slab Reinforcement is now expanded with multiple page options in the same manner as other options - such as Section/ Material Grade - have been in previous releases. This removes the previous limit of 9 reinforcement variations and enables the graphical review and editing of any number of these. When the number of variations exceeds 9, the next legend page right arrow > is enabled as shown in the picture below - you can then move forward/ backward between legend pages to review all the reinforcement variations.

Highlights
- Enhanced Grasshopper Live Link - Design Results and Reporting

Enhancements and Fixes
Trimble Connect - Integration with Trimble Connect is enhanced with the following new options:
- Drawings - Upload of any DXF drawing to a linked Trimble Connect Project. This option is listed in the DXF Export Preferences dialog as shown below.


Reports - Upload a PDF of any Report to a linked Trimble Connect Project via the new “PDF Upload” button in the Trimble Connect group of the Report Ribbon.
- Both this and the DXF Export Preferences dialog include an option to open the new Trimble Connect File browser to allow the selection of the target project folder for created Drawing/ Report (see picture below).
- Defaults for the default Target folder in the Trimble Connect project, and whether to keep a local copy of the report, can also be set via the “Upload Settings’ button.
Model Links - Uploaded Member Drawings/ Reports can also optionally be linked to their specific member in the uploaded IFC model, as shown in the pictures below. They can then be conveniently accessed directly from the IFC model attachments in Trimble Connect.

This release includes further enhancements to the Tekla Structural Designer Open API. For how to get started with the API. New additions to the API enable interrogation by an external application / process of the following objects and items:
- Construction points & point groups
- Planes (Levels / Frames / Slopes)
- Slab items / slabs / slab openings / decks / slab patches
. For slabs: Reinforcement, decomposition types, diaphragm options, mesh types
- Roofs
- Structural walls
- Wind walls
- Piles

Load Combinations - US Head Code:
- [TSD-3294] - Seismic Combinations - In a similar manner to Gravity and other Lateral combinations, Notional Loads (NL) can now be included in seismic combinations. Addition of NL’s to seismic combinations is a manual process at the engineer’s discretion via the combinations dialogue - there is no automatic generation option in the Combination Generator.
. The notional load value is calculated in all cases from the combination’s constituent "gravity" load cases - i.e., Self weight, Slab Dry, Dead, Live, Live (Other), Roof Live, Snow.
- [TSD-4018] - Combinations Generator - the LRFD 1.4D combination is now enabled by default in the Load Combination Generator.

[TSD-7668] - Wind Loading - US Head Code - the Wind Loadcases dialog "Auto" command now correctly enables the "Roof Loads" option for the “±X’±Y’” cases when the Roof Cp checkbox is selected in load case generator, so all Wind loadcases now have Roof Loads enabled by default.

[TSD-4678] - Consequence/ Reliability Class - the setting for "Consequence Class" for Finland (Eurocode NA) and "Reliability Class" for Sweden (Eurocode NA) has been moved from the Structure Tree Properties to Settings (Global and Model) > Loading > General as shown below.
- Note that if the class is changed, existing combinations are deleted and must be re-created as some dead load combination factors are dependent upon the class.


[TSD-7574] - Notional Loads, Equivalent Horizontal Forces (NL, NHL, EHF) - NL’s for previously analysed loadcases from which all loading had subsequently been removed were not updated to reflect this, leading to higher than required NL’s being considered. We expect this would be an extremely rare occurrence, however it has been encountered and is addressed in this release. The issue no longer occurs for new models. For existing models which you suspect may have this issue you should:
- Review the applied notional forces and check they appear reasonable. If required the stored results can be cleared and hence NL’s updated by doing one of the following:
. Use the Save model only command - will remove all stored analysis results and update the NL’s when you next analyze/ design.
. Edit objects in the model such as the geometry of a member or it's supporting conditions - will set results to out of date so NL’s are updated when you next analyze/ design.
. Use the Ctrl+right-click context menu from the Structure tree heading and select the “Clear solver results” option.

Highlights
- Dynamic Analysis - Wind Tunnel Data Report Generation
- Walls - Distributed Wall Reactions

Enhancements and Fixes

[TSD-6770] - 3D only (Static) - a new analysis option “3D only (Static)” is added to the Analyze Ribbon as shown below. As the tooltip for this details - this performs the same analyses as “Analyse All (Static)” but excluding the chase-down analyses. It is thus a more rapid form of overall analysis which can be used to obtain/ update the results for all processes that use the 3D Building Analysis results, such as sway/ drift* checks and steel design.
- *Seismic drift check results are not updated by this analysis when the RSA method is selected for Seismic - as in previous releases, RSA Design must be run to update these.

Highlights

- Comprehensively Enhanced Timber/ Wood design using Tekla Tedds
- Minimum Design Forces & Rounding Increment
- Steel Design - New Patterning of Eccentricity Moments
- Steel Design - Compound Section Design - Indian Head Code
- Concrete Design - Pile Punching Checks on Mat Foundations - Eurocode and US Head Codes

General Design Enhancements and Fixes

[TSD-4551] - Foundation Design - Isolated Pad Bases - Sliding Check- a new option is added allowing the engineer to control whether the passive resistance of the soil is included in the check of Sliding Resistance. In previous releases, the soil passive resistance was always included for all Head Codes except the Eurocode (all country NA’s) which always omitted it. As shown in the picture below, the new control is a check box in Design Settings > Concrete > Isolated Foundations > General Parameters > “Consider passive resistance of soil…”
- To match previous behaviour, the setting defaults to on for all Head Codes except the Eurocode (all country NA’s).
- In addition to the new control for all Head Codes, the soil passive resistance is also included in the sliding checks for the Eurocode Head Code (all country NA’s) when the new setting is enabled (default off).


[TSD-7527] - Design Summary Table - of particular use during the Design Review stage, you can now double-click a row of the Review Data > Design Summary table to select the associated entity in the Structure 3D view. This functions for all entities - beams, columns, walls, slabs etc - and materials which have a Design Summary table, including those for Timber Members introduced as part of the Timber design using Tekla Tedds feature detailed above and illustrated below.
- As shown, you can arrange the table and Structure 3D view windows so they are both visible to assist with this process (the active view will automatically switch to the Structure 3D view after double-clicking the table row if this is not the case).
- On double-clicking, the view automatically zooms/ pans to the location of the associated entity which is both selected and indicated with an arrow. Simultaneously the Properties Window is also populated with those of the entity.
- This feature works particularly well in conjunction with Ghost Unselected On, making the selected entity exceptionally clear as illustrated.


[TSD-6674] - Concrete Design - Beams - All Head Codes - the design shear identification process has been enhanced such that the design shear force can originate from anywhere within the respective design region. In effect this increases the scope of the design to ensure that the maximum shear force in the region is considered for beams under special and less usual loading conditions such as forces applied within a distance ‘d’ of the support. Also included are minor adjustments and clarifications to the reported check results to make the origin of the design shear more transparent.

[TSD-7607] - Member Design - this issue relates only to release 2020 SP3 in which it was introduced and design/ check of individual members using the right-click context menu. In the 2020 SP3 release, a change was introduced which cleared analysis results on members which were changed by a direct edit - e.g. of their section size. This removed the workflow available in previous versions of investigating alternative member sizes using analysis results which could be out of date, but still considered useful. The change has been reversed in this release enabling this workflow once more.

[TSD-7223] - Composite Beams - Effective Width - in the unusual circumstances of an alignment offset being applied to composite beams such that the top of the beam was dropped below the bottom of the slab creating a gap - as illustrated in the picture below - the detection of adjacent beams in the automatic effective width calculation was impacted. This could result in the automatically calculated effective width (which can be reviewed/ edited by the engineer at their discretion) not being correctly limited by the beam spacing. Although we consider this to be an unlikely circumstance, it has been encountered and is addressed in this release. Such offsets (which are not structurally significant as noted in the properties dialog) are now correctly ignored by adjacent beam detection and the effective width limited by the beam spacing, where this governs.

- Note that existing models with this circumstance will be flagged/ corrected by validation in this release depending on the setting Design > Settings > Composite Beams > “Update effective width prior to design check”:
. When Off - affected beams will be flagged with a validation warning.
. When On - the effective width of affected beams will automatically be corrected by validation and check/design.


Eurocode Design Enhancements and Fixes

[TSD-4551] - Foundation Design - Isolated Pad Bases - Passive Resistance - as noted above, the soil passive resistance can now be included in the sliding checks for the Eurocode Head Code (all country NA’s) by enabling the new setting for this; Design Settings > Concrete > Isolated Foundations > General Parameters > “Consider passive resistance of soil…”.
- This new option also enables the “Ignorable percentage of passive pressure” value for pinned bases, which simplifies the design for small values of shear values which would commonly be ignored. Previously, this was only available for Head Codes which considered the soil passive pressure (always).
. The % value default is 1.00 - set the value to zero to consider all forces no matter how small.


[TSD-6738]- Precast Design (using Tekla Tedds) - Columns - the Tedds Precast column design (EN1992) calculation was recently enhanced (in the Tedds Engineering April 2020 Update) with a basic shear check. The link with Tekla Tedds for precast concrete design is accordingly enhanced in this release to populate the calculation with shear force values from the Structural Designer model.

US Design Enhancements and Fixes

[TSD-5994, 7579] - Steel Design - Braces - Design is now carried out for steel braces with Rod section type for all years of AISC 360 (ASD and LRFD). The design is only carried out for axial tension, since rod sections are commonly only used for tension-only bracing and ties. Compression is beyond scope - a design details note is issued stating this and that the section is assumed slender and additional hand calculations are required.
- A new Order list for Rod sections is also added in this release.

Reports
[TSD-5518] - on selecting Show Report, the report is now opened with the continuous display mode active (so the report can easily be scrolled through with the mouse wheel) and the Project Workspace Report Index is also automatically activated.

Drawings
[TSD-7000] - Gable Posts - General Arrangement (GA) Drawing - Gable Posts (Steel, Timber & Cold Formed) are now included in GA drawings and in Scene Content > Plan View.

The Duplicate document command which is one of the most frequently used commands in the Tedds Application has been enhanced to improve productivity. When the Duplicate command on the Home tab is now used on a document which belongs to the current project the new document will be automatically added to the project.

When using a 4K display the 4x increase in pixels over a standard HD (1080p) display can provide a significant improvement in the visual quality for text, images and drawings in both the Tedds user interface and the documented output. This service pack includes more enhancements and fixes which ensure that Tedds is optimised for high resolution displays and some of those improvements will also be of benefit if your Windows Text Size setting is greater than 100%.

General
[TEDDS-4749] - Fixed calculation user interface button images for “Collapse” and “Expand” which were transposed.
[TEDDS-4659] - Added an option to prevent asterisks being converted to multiplication symbols in document output in order to resolve problems on some systems which do not display the multiplication symbols correctly.
[TEDDS-4769] - Fixed Date format control on the Tedds header options dialog to ensure that the items in the list use an appropriate height when Windows text size settings are greater than 100%
[TEDDS-4835] - Fixed TedToPdf.exe failing to run after installing Service Pack 2 due to unhandled exception, "System.MissingMethodException".

2D analysis
[TEDDS-4669] - Fixed the expression error “section name cannot contain the '*' character” when selecting some steel sections and the Tedds country setting is “Finland”, “Norway” or “Sweden”.
[TEDDS-4695] - Fixed 2D analysis not recognising which datalist an existing steel section was selected from.
[TEDDS-4361] - Improved layout of 2D analysis user interface when Windows text size settings are greater than 100%.
[TEDDS-3552] - Removed references to Quasi combinations when the design code is steel or timber (requires Tedds Engineering Library July 2020).
[TEDDS-4134] - Fixed error "Load extends beyond end" which sometimes occurred for loads positioned on the end of an element.
[TEDDS-4707] - Fixed to prevent an undefined variable error in the “Wood member analysis and design (NDS)” calculation related to "_SetMaterialDetails" due to the manual input of the material density. When combined with the Tedds Engineering Library (July 2020) update the enhancement [TEDDS-545]1 ensures that the density value is calculated automatically for sawn lumber and glulam and does not have to be entered manually.
[TEDDS-4799] - Fixed lumber type not being included in section source data for US flitch sections.

Tedds Application
[TEDDS-4366] - Enhanced the “Duplicate” document command so that when the source document is included in the active project the new document will be automatically included in the project after the source document.
[TEDDS-4715] - Fixed attempting to calculate when signed out shows multiple sign in windows and attempts to calculate

Tedds for Word
[TEDDS-4651] - Tedds For Word: Enhanced the Insert Tedds Field dialog to use high resolution images when the Windows text size setting is at least 200% which improves the visual fidelity on hi resolution displays.
[TEDDS-4768] - Tedds for Word: Fixed the units menu appearing visually corrupted when the Windows text size setting is greater than 100%.
[TEDDS-4688] - Fixed inconsistent tooltips for “Unlink Fields” command
[TEDDS-4723] - Improved user experience when a license fails to verify.
[TEDDS-4634] - Modified the “Update Calc Examples” and “Verify Calc Examples” commands so that numeric values are now formatted in input/output format which ensures that precision is always maintained.
[TEDDS-4333] - Attempting to open the Tedds options dialog in Tedds for Word before the Tedds Add-In has loaded causes Word to hang.
[TEDDS-4820] - Fixed error "Exception reading manifest from file. The manifest may not be valid or the file could not be opened. Manifest XML signature is not valid" when launching Tedds for Word after installing Service Pack 2.

Calculation writing
[TEDDS-4634] - Modified the “SaveVerifySectionVarsCalcItem” and “SaveSectionVarsTextFile” functions to use input/output formatting when representing numeric values in plain text.
[TEDDS-4647] - Enhanced buttons in calculation user interfaces to support more pre-defined images including “Optimize” and “Ellipses”.
[TEDDS-4662] - Enhanced buttons in calculation user interfaces to support hi resolution images when the Windows text size setting is at least 200% which improves the visual fidelity on hi resolution displays.
[TEDDS-4745] - Enhanced calculation user interfaces to allow dialog pages to be shown as compact popup dialogs which can be used with a button to achieve a drop down style button which opens a compact version of a dialog.

Tedds API
[TEDDS-4732] - Tedds Application API: Enhanced TeddsDocument to include a set VariablesXml property.
[TEDDS-4733] - Tedds Application API: Enhanced ITeddsDocument to include properties for querying the library file and item name of the calculation associated with the document.
[TEDDS-4747] - Tedds Calculator: Enhanced to include a new UndefinedVariable2 event which allows the attributes of the new variable to be defined.

- update_tekla_license_service_64_july2020.msp
- update_tekla_license_service_july2020.msp
- update_tekla_structural_designer_2020_sp4.msp
- update_tekla_tedds2020_sp2b.msp
- update_tekla_tedds642020_sp2a.msp
- update_tekla_teddseng_september2020.msp

Tekla Structural Designer 2020 hardware recommendations.

System requirements for effective operation

CPU: Multi core Intel i5 Series or above, Xeon or AMD equivalent
- Highest affordable performance recommended.

Memory: 16GB (32GB or more recommended)
- Memory requirements are highly dependent on model content.

OS: 64-bit Microsoft Windows 8.1 / 10
- Operating systems must be running the latest service packs / updates.

Graphics: 1600 x 900 resolution (1920 x 1080 or higher recommended)
- 1GB or higher of dedicated RAM.
- Utilizes HOOPS Visualize, a third party graphics engine available from Tech Soft 3D. To check your adapter’s compatibility visit the HOOPS developer website for HOOPS 20.x, DirectX and OpenGL requirements.

Disk space: 1GB or more of free space for installation
- Operational disk space requirements are highly dependent on model content.

Internet connection: Required for access to Online Services and some documentation.

License Service:
- Tekla Structural License Service 3.00 including Sentinel RMS 9.5

License Server: The latest version of the Tekla Structural Licence Service, at time of release, is shipped and installed with the software. If you have chosen to have a separate licence server, it is always our recommendation that you also run the latest version of the Tekla Structural License Service on it to ensure compatibility. Please see System Requirements for specific version details.

Test environments

The application is tested and supported on the following business versions of Microsoft Windows with the latest updates applied:

- Windows 10 64-bit
- Windows 8.1 64-bit