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„REI’s U.K. office developed the ‚bridge loader‘ extension
for STAAD.Pro to minimize
the load application process, while complying with
U.S. and international code requirements,“ he said.
The current version of BEAVA supports U.S. AASHTO
2000 standards and U.K. BS5400 Part 2 code. Eight
international engineering firms collaborated with
REI to develop the software.
The general philosophy governing bridge
design is that, subject to a set of loading rules
and constraints, the critical effects due to load
application should be established and designed for.
The process of load application can be complex since
governing rules can impose interdependent parameters
such as loaded length on a lane, lane factors and
load intensity.
To obtain the maximum design effects,
engineers have to try many loading situations on a
trial and error basis. This leads to the generation
of many live load application instances that have
to be combined with dead load effects as well.
The bridge loader application is based
on the use of 3-D influence surfaces, which are generated
by STAAD.Pro as part of
the loading process. An influence surface for a given
effect on a bridge deck relates its value to movement
of a unit load over a particular point on the bridge
deck.
The program will automatically generate
and draw influence surfaces for effects such as bending
moments on members, support reactions, element stresses
and deflection nodes. The engineer can then instruct
the program to use the relevant influence surfaces
and optimize load positions to obtain the maximum
desired effects.
After BEAVA generates the influence surfaces,
the program saves them and they can be reused for
any further investigation that may be required. The
program can then proceed to follow the selected design
code and calculate the number of traffic lanes, influence
lines along the centerline of the traffic lanes, loaded
length along the lanes, critical locations of all
knife, UDL and vehicular loads, and the maximum and
associate effect values. All results are displayed
graphically including the critical position of the
vehicle along the traffic lanes.
„The engineer’s knowledge and judgement
is critical in deciding which effects and at what
position on the bridge deck to obtain them,“ Das said.
„This is where users of the program can save a lot
of processing time, and also can ensure critical positions
are not missed.“
All relevant code instructions for loading
definitions and traffic lane calculations are incorporated
in BEAVA, and in cases where vehicle axle arrangements
are not standard, it is possible to define a vehicle
and save it in the library for future analyses.
BEAVA is fully integrated in STAAD.Pro
and uses the same interface (GUI) for all input and
output data. Loading arrangements can be displayed
on the model, and for every loading arrangement produced,
the user can instruct the program to generate a STAAD.Pro
load case. The added live load cases can be subsequently
combined with dead loads (non-moving vehicles) using
STAAD.Pro load combinations. The final model can then
be analyzed in STAAD.Pro. In addition, BEAVA also
supports curved bridge roadways.
REI announced release of BEAVA at the
company’s 15th Annual STAAD Users Conference in Las
Vegas, Nevada, attended by DOT representatives from
throughout the U.S. and engineers across the globe.
Research Engineers International, a division
of netGuru, Inc., is a leading worldwide developer
and distributor of high quality desktop and Web-enabled
software solutions for the engineering industry. Founded
in 1981, the company’s core business is the development
of cost-effective, Windows-based solutions. REI has
nearly 19,000 customers accounting for over 47,000
software installations and 140,000 concurrent users
worldwide. Please visit REI’s website at
www.reiworld.com. |
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