How to save calculation time?

Introduction

In case of a model with a lot of load cases (wind in different directions, with and without internal pressure, snow,seismic etc.), hundreds of load combinations can be generated acc. to EC but many of these combinations are irrelevant. Running an Analysis on all of the load combinations can take a lot of time, that could be saved, if the relevant load combinations are calculated only.

How to do that

1. To find the relevant load combinations and save calculation time: At first perform only elastic first order analysis and global checks based on that. Even first order calculation can take much time if there are non-linear elements (practically tension-only rods) in the model. It is possible to temporarily change the non-linear elements to linear ones in order to let Consteel calculate the load combination analysis results with superposition of the load cases which is much quicker than calculation with non-linear elements.

2. Under the Global checks tab, on the results table, selection of the load combinations with significant utilization can be done. (As on all tables in Consteel, multiple selection of different load combinations can be performed easily using Ctrl+select, or Shift+select features of Windows) With a right click on the selected combinations, use Select only these combination for the Analysis function to apply your choice to the next run.