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Sneak Preview: New cold-formed steel package in Scia Engineer 2010
(EC-EN 1993-1-3:2006 and AISI NAS 2007)

Launch of student portal for Scia Engineer - Nemetschek committed to education

U2 rocks thanks to Stageco (BE) … and Scia Engineer

You can’t have missed it these last months: U2 rocks again as never before.  Some part of the credit for this success can definitely be taken by Stageco, the Belgian company ranking among the best in the world in developing and erecting impressive stages and other temporary constructions. For many years, Stageco is putting Scia software solutions to use for the modelisation, analysis and dimensioning of outstanding stages. Remember 2007, when Stageco won the Scia User Contest with a stage that was designed and purpose-built for popstar Robbie Williams.

Mr. Tom Frederickx, the senior person in charge of stability at Stageco explains:
“With ‘The Space Station’ - as is called the stage of U2 - once again frontiers are pushed out. The stage creates the impression of being a gigantic space ship.  It measures 60m by 40m, it has a height of 50m and its claws stretch out to the audience. The concertgoers are really spoilt with the 360° round stage, which is the largest that Stageco has realized up to now.
The first drafts, with only an indication of the global dimensions, were delivered to us in April 2008. The first analysis models were created with Scia Engineer on the basis of these rough sketches, the assumed loads were however already taken into account.

The architects’ firm “Mark Fisher Studio” produced the digital 3D AutoCAD design files, which could be easily read into Scia Engineer. During the development period there was continuous interaction between the various parties.  DWG and PDF were the principal exchange formats. The global model was managed by a coordinator, who surveyed the entire project and who took care of informing and passing on information to all involved parties.

The analysis models were further detailed within Scia Engineer and the results were exchanged with the draughtsman who adapted his drawing models accordingly.  The development has been a continuous process and all simulations were carried out immediately in the software. The entire execution of the project has been done by external companies, therefore it was very important to be able to link with third party software, e.g. with Tekla Structures, Bocad, Advance Steel, Inventor en Pro Engineer.“

Mr. Frederickx announced us further that we will surely read more on this revealing project in the next edition of the ‘Nemetschek Engineering User Contest’.

Scia Engineer: Import of a cross-section from a dxf/dwg file

Do you wish to perform a calculation in Scia Engineer based on a cross-section from a dxf or dwg file?
No problem, this can be done quite easily with the module esa.07 – General cross-section.


Starting from the menu ‘Libraries’ > ‘Cross-sections’ you can add to your project a new cross-section, type ‘General’ (see picture 1).
After clicking on ‘Add’, the window ‘Cross-section editor’ opens. You will notice the different options right away: in addition to the import of a dxf/dwg file, it is also possible to enter the desired geometry yourself based on polygons or an existing section from the library. Furthermore, the dimensions can even be parameterized.

picture 1	picture 2	picture 3	picture 4

Make now a choice for the option ‘Import dxf/dwg’ and open the concerned file. The import of e.g. a cross-section for a bridge requires the following steps. Put the ‘Selection mode’ to ‘Polygons’ and select the outline of the section. Consequently choose in the ‘Selection mode’ the ‘Polygonal openings’ and select the lines which form the borders of the openings. Don’t forget to enter the correct scale, and then choose for ‘Import selected’ (see picture 2). After the choice of the material, assign the origin as enter point.

TIP: Take care to define in the source file all of the outlines as polylines and to define each circle segment as an arc through 3 points (not approximated by a lot of straight lines).

After clicking on ‘Close’, the following result is obtained (see picture 3).
Click in this window on ‘Update’ to show the properties of the cross-section, calculated by Scia Engineer based on standard formulas known from basic mechanics. To retrieve more correct results for the shear and torsion properties, it is recommended to choose for a ‘FEM analysis’. In that case some calculations are done based respectively on the theories of Grasshof-Zuravski and Prandtl
(see picture 4).

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