5 motives for migrating from your connection design software to IDEA StatiCa
Questions worthwhile asking oneself — Will I remain competitive with software that is limiting my potential? Should I continue to do hand calculations of connections that take several hours or even days when this could be done in minutes?
In a fastly adapting market, IDEA StatiCa holds the most advanced solution for steel connection design, giving you the power to design and code-check all of your steel connections of any topology and loading in a few minutes, whilst ensuring safety.
Motive 1 – Flexibility
When it comes to traditional connection design software, the possibilities and workflows are pretty much the same: you choose from a pool of templates of connection configurations. That templates set the boundaries for adjustments in the geometry and loading.
You can follow exactly the same workflow in IDEA StatiCa. When you create a connection, you can choose from more than 250 different templates.
The difference is here
The difference in IDEA StatiCa is that you can do much more than that! For example, have you designed a simple connection of a deep beam-to-column and the designer changed the beam into a cellular one? No problem, simply add a web opening (as close as you want) and analyze it again to quickly see if this has any impact on the connection.
No limits? No problem.
Non-standard configurations are exactly where IDEA StatiCa thrives! You simply model, IDEA StatiCa designs, calculates, and checks your connections for you.
You can define shapes based on your project—not on what your software can handle! There is no limit in the number of beams, bolts, welds, and plates in your connections. With IDEA StatiCa you are able to do the most common topologies in seconds and continue editing the connection templates right in the 3D scene.
See how to design a steel-to-concrete connection in less than 3 minutes.
Motive 2 – Clear pass/fail status. Complete reports
At the end of the day, you need to know if your connection passes all the necessary checks. That is exactly what IDEA StatiCa gives you: a simple pass or fail status for all the elements (plates, bolds, welds) according to the code.
In addition to this, you may need to export all the calculations in a readable and presentable document. IDEA StatiCa will create that for you too, simply choose what information you would like to include and the report will be drawn up immediately.
Motive 3 – Fast learning curve
Migrating to IDEA StatiCa is much easier to use than you might be thinking! We created the software with one topic in mind: to be very easy to learn and extremely user-friendly. So no matter what is your experience with other software, it is most likely that you will be able to use IDEA StatiCa and design your first connections within your first hour of using our software. To learn the basics, you need approx. 2 weeks.
Become connection design expert with IDEA StatiCa Campus
To help you speed up with the learning process and become a proficient user of IDEA StatiCa, we prepared an e-learning course - IDEA StatiCa Campus. In this comprehensive course consisting of 12 lessons with online videos and complex PDF materials, you will get to the advanced level in 30-40 hours.
Motive 4 – Leverage BIM
Traditional connection design software often works independently, or at the very best within the family of products developed by the same software company. In this highly connected world where BIM (Building Information Modeling) has become a necessity, it is imperative to be able to work with software that allows you to exchange information across different vendors and platforms.
IDEA StatiCa is committed to allowing its users to do that in the most efficient way possible: IDEA StatiCa automatically links with your software to let you export and synchronize data. This minimizes errors and repetitive work so you can focus on more crucial tasks – proper analysis, design and code-check of connections, cross-sections, members, and details.
So far, you can enjoy 3 links to CAD software (Tekla Structures, Autodesk Advance Steel, and Autodesk Revit) and 14 CAE/FEA software. Importing from the third-party software is controlled and powered by our Code-check manager, which simplifies and speeds up your workflows.
Motive 5 – Safety at the forefront of our solution
Staying on the safe side is the core of the structural engineer's work. We wrote about it in one of our previous posts.
We work closely with numerous universities to test and verify IDEA StatiCa results to provide the user with the peace of mind that their designs are complete, accurate, and in accordance with major global design codes. Our unique CBFEM method for steel has been thoroughly tested in close cooperation with two technical universities and HILTI.
All of the verifications, design assumptions and articles are published and available to the engineering community. We encourage you to go through all of our validation and verification documentation that you can find in our Support Centre.
