Multi-Story Building Analysis And Design Software

Multi-Story Building Analysis & Design Software

Construction of high-rise buildings has become mandatory for addressing the demand of our growing population. It enables our government to tackle land scarcity in the future. In addition, the design and development of multi-story buildings can’t be analyzed manually. You need to use computerized commercial software for designing and analyzing the structure digitally. With advanced technology, you can build more robust and sustainable buildings, withstanding nature’s forces like hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, and more.

The planning and designing of structures require intensive thought processes and pensive thinking. Besides the knowledge of practical aspects of designing such as relevant design codes, it also requires sound knowledge of structural engineering.Considering every cornerstone while designing and structuring the building ensures a good balance between economy and safety. Software like ETABS is used to evaluate basic or advanced systems under static and dynamic conditions.

Introduction of ETABS

ETABS software is available for the analysis and designing of multi-story buildings. It offers a single-user interface to execute proper modeling, design, analysis, and reporting. No limit is defined for model windows, model manipulation views, and data views. ETABS is a coordinated and productive tool to design, including simple 2D frames and elaborate modern high-rises.

For designing reinforced concrete structures, three design philosophies are required that include working stress method, ultimate load method, and limit state method. Furthermore, the process of structural designing includes structural planning, estimation of loads, structural analysis, member design, and drawing, detailing and preparation of structures.

Structural systems modeling

To get in-depth details of the software, you need to understand its fundamentals. ETABS modeling is the generalization that multi-story buildings typically consist of identical or similar floor plans that repeat in the vertical direction. Modeling features of ETABS ensure proper streamlining of analytical-model generation and stimulation of advanced seismic systems. Scroll the list for ETABS modeling features:

• Customized section geometry and constitutive behavior
• Grouping of frame and shell objects
• Templates for global-system and local-element modeling
• Link assignment for modeling isolators, dampers, and other advanced seismic systems
• Nonlinear hinge specification
• Automatic meshing with manual options
• Editing and assignment features for plan, elevation, and 3D views

Designing, loading, & analysis

When the modeling part is completed, ETABS automatically generates code-based loading conditions. It also assigns these conditions for gravity, seismic, wind, and thermal forces. Here, users need to specify the number of load cases and combinations.

Furthermore, the analysis is performed with advanced nonlinear methods for the characterization of static pushover and dynamic response. The dynamic conditions may cover response-spectrum, modal, or time-history analysis. And, to check geometric nonlinearity, the P-Delta effect is used.

If you give proper specification, design features will automatically size elements and systems, and design reinforcing schemes. If not so, then it will optimize the structure as per the desired performance measures.

Output, interoperability, and versatility

Another key feature of ETABS is its practical and intuitive output and display formats. You can also have two-dimensional and three-dimensional views with corresponding data sets. It also provides detailed section cuts that showcase various local response measures.

Global perspectives depicting static displaced configurations or video animations of time-history responses are available as well.

ETABS is a multi-story building analysis and design software that features interoperability with related software products. It provides imports of architectural models from various technical drawing software, or export to various platforms and file formats.

Even though it has plenty of features, the software is generally used for designing basic systems. Practically,ETABS is good for grid-like applications, covering simple 2D frames as well as most complex high rises.

Future Scope:

• Use ETABS for dynamic analysis.
• Use SAFE to design slab and footing.
• Different types of slabs can be designed in ETABS 2017.
• In ETABS, the sections can be designed using conventional methods.
• Use ETABS to analyze and design irregular structures subjected to different load cases.