I am pleased to announce a new release of STAAD.Pro CONNECT Edition V22.

As part of our commitment to you to deliver new builds more frequently, we are making available this version which adds great new functionality to improve efficiency for engineers around the world and has resolved numerous issues that have been reported and thus highly recommend that you look to adopt this version and improve your working experience.

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

Changes in the Graphical User Interface

The familiar interface has been spruced up with a number of small but helpful improvements that help in working the daily operations.User control workflows

• There are times when a simpler, clearer interface is more helpful than seeing every available capability. STAAD.Pro has many workflows available with more being planned in future, but not all will be relevant to every engineer for every project. So being able to customise your interface to only display workflows that are currently relevant will help you to focus on the areas that are significant to your current tasks. When your projects change and others become relevant, then these workflows can simply reset.

• Navigation buttons
  • New icons have been added to allow quick access to step back to the previous selected layout or select it from a drop list of recently visited layouts and also forward through them once again to get back to where you left off.

• Backup file comparison
  • The ability to save models as Restore Points has been enhanced with the option to compare details of a saved Restore model with the current data, or investigate the differences in the models saved at different stages in the life of the project.

• Context Ribbons improved to relate to the workflow
  • When selecting objects in the graphical interface, a context ribbon is displayed to provide tools relevant for the selected object type. This recognition of selection has been extended to the reflect the context such that modelling tools are only displayed in the modelling workflow.

• Clean up Recent Files
  • The recent file list is a useful shortcut method to quickly reopen a file from the Open backstage, but occasionally the models move or the drive in which they reside is no longer accessible and the recent file list indicates that the file no longer exists. Displaying these files can simply clog up useful space, so we have added a simple tool to remove all these shortcuts from the displayed list to provide a clean list of models that are currently available.

• Coordinated Connection Design
  • The Connection Tag and Connection Design using the Connection Design Workflow has been improved by extending the definition of the tag to include a connection template in the Connection Tag XML file. This means when the tag is assigned which can be used for broad capacity checks, the details are ready for detailed checks in the Connection Design workflow. Note that to fully utilise the connections available in the Connection Design workflow, a RAM Connection or Structural Enterprise license is required.

 Physical Modelling

• Panel Loading
  • Panels, the non-structural object that represents a surface that might attract wind loading that would be ultimately returned to the support framework has been updated so that a defined panel can now be used in multiple load cases making it more practical for situations where different wind loading conditions need to be accounted for on the same panel.

• Moving object is the Physical Model
  • The ability to create objects, the after edit or manipulate them has been made easier with a simple Move Tool. Similar to the equivalent tool in the analytical Workflow, connections can be retained, but it has one trick not present in the Analytical Workflow and that is defining the direction of movement to be not just in the regular World Coordinate System (WCS), but also can make use of a move to be measure in any user defined axis system (USC) if present in the model.

• SPPM Surface line support
  • Being able to define line supports has been made much easier by extending the capability of the Reference Line object that was part of the last release. With this release a reference line can now be made into a support and where this aligns with a surface edge or within the surface face, suitable supports are created at the relevant nodes on the surface.

Analysis

• Single Solver for all levels of STAAD.Pro
  • Over recent times, the different levels of STAAD.Pro has utilised different solvers to perform the same functionality. Despite giving the same ultimate results, on occasion some capabilities were only available with one solver. So this has been simplified to have all levels of STAAD.Pro operate with the solver that has been previously only used with the STAAD.Pro Advanced level of the program. This should add performance efficiency for the standard STAAD.Pro users and ensure when appropriate capabilities are provided to all relevant parts of the program. Note this is provision of the Advanced solver only. It does not add the extra capabilities provided by the STAAD.Pro Advanced license.
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• Loading
  • Seismic loading to IS 1893-pt 4 2015
    • The scope of the static seismic and dynamic response spectrum generators that STAAD.Pro delivers has been extended with the ability to define these according to the IS 1893 specification ‘Criteria for Earthquake Design of Structures – Part 4, Industrial Structures Including Stack-Like Structures’.

Design

• Update US Cold formed steel design to AISI 2016
  • The design of cold formed members to the AISI S100-2016 code has been added. As an aid, a new code snippet option has been added to the Editor to allow rapid creation of the design parameters and an illustration on how this capability can be used. Note that the earlier 1996 provision has simultaneously been withdrawn.

• Eurocode 3, EN 1993-1-1 – with updated Belgium NA
  • The implementation of the Belgium National Annex for the steel design to Eurocode 3 has been updated to account for the changes published in 2018.

• Chinese Steel Design using SSDD
  • Steel design for the Chinese code GB50010 has been supported in STAAD.Pro using a separate standalone module and installation called SSDD. This module is now included in the primary STAAD.Pro installer

• Russian Steel Design to SP 16.1330.2017 (TP)
  • Steel design of members to the Russian code SP 16.13330.2017 is included in the application as a technical preview feature which will be available as a full commercial offering in the next release. Please provide any comments and feedback to your Bentley support team or account manager.
    

 Additional Modules

• New SFA
  • Update 3 version delivered with STAAD.Pro. For full details of the new capabilities see here.
  • Note that STAAD. Foundation Advanced has a limited set of capabilities available with a standard STAAD.Pro license. For full access a STAAD Foundation Advanced or Structural Enterprise license is required.

• New RCDC
  • Update 2 version delivered with STAAD.Pro. For full details of the new capabilities see here
  • Note that RCDC has a limited set of capabilities available with a standard STAAD.Pro license. For full access an RCDC, STAAD.Pro Advanced or Structural Enterprise license is required.

Note that if you are already using STAAD.Pro CONNECT Edition, you should be notified of the new build with the Bentley CONNECTION Client.

Revision History

The Revision History document details the issues that have been addressed and as with all builds is included in the ReadMe file which can be accessed from the Help section of the application and can also be found here.