Which one is a better program in terms of result accuracy? Would like to hear your thoughts.
Also, can you share your experience of how you familiarized yourself with Seismostruct. There are few tutorial videos on youtube and I think in terms of popularity, SAP/ETABS is more common in our industry. But I am leaning towards using seismostruct in doing my masteral thesis.
Dear Kay Guanlao
the following article will help you:
https://www.iitk.ac.in/nicee/wcee/article/WCEE2012_2378.pdf
Dear Kay Guanlao,
Instead of ETABS/SAP, Seismostruct and OpenSEES are two appropriate software for academic investigations.
SeismoStruct is an award-winning Finite Elements package capable of predicting the large displacement behavior of space frames under static or dynamic loading, taking into account both geometric nonlinearities and material inelasticity.
In my mind, Seismostruct or other nonlinear analysis programs such as Opensees or Perform are better than Sap or Etabs .... because they have focused only on analysis and they are more accurate.
Also, Opensees is best one.
Seismostruct is powerful in that it uses a fibre-based approach and versarile nonlinear material models to simulste the cyclic stress-strain cyles.
Further seismostruct allows us to capture the seismic demands at diffetent earthwuake loads providing a performance point in each case.
Thus seismostruct can be used as a most reliable computation tool in performance base earthquake engg.
Dear Kay Guanlao,
All these instruments/programs are based on the same philosophy coming from Statics and Dynamics of Structure. However, there are some positive and negative sides in each of the programs and this is your choice which one to use. I personally was long time using SAP2000 and was every time discovering the numerous positive features of this program. So, choose one of the mentioned by you programs (this will not make big difference) and go ahead trying to better understand its features. You will see that as deep you will learn it as better it will seem to you. Of course, just from the beginning you have to clarify for yourself that the chosen program have all the needed feature for solving your tasks.
Best regards,
Prof. Dr. Mikayel Melkumyan
Yes, SeismoStruct is a good software for practical works as compared to others.
I think both Seismostruct and OpenSees will be good. But there are others on the market.
SAP 2000NL is good for Pushover analysis. You will get to know about material modelling. You will understand FEMA guidelines. Moreover you can link your work with Statistics.
Hello, between Seismostruct and sap, i myself prefer seismostruct but academic version of Seismostruct is 2D.
I just want to make a correction to mr. Amir Masoumi Verki answer. With SeismoStruct you may also model 3D structures. There is no 2D limitation in the free academic version.
I'd just like to point out that this decision may not be so binary! I've been using seismostruct with great resuts for RC structures but not so good in masonry.
Also, Seismostruct does not process shells, but has great ability of makeing EC8-3 verifications. By experience, I advise you to take attention to specifics of what you need to do before deciding, it may save you vast ammounts of time!
Dear Kay Guanlao
Both have their advantages and disadvantages. Regarding the accuracy of pushover analysis, SeismoStruct surpasses SAP2000 based on my experience.
It looks like SAP is for general purposes analysis but SeismoStruct for buildings
Sap 2000 version 20 or upper is good in nonlinear analysis either NSP. You can see collapse level by changing the nonlinear parameters in load cases. But it should be notice that changes these parameters and the values are important depends on the structure. So at first just use default values. You can use plastic hings, linear and plastic links and fiber elements for nonlinear behavior.
Seismostruc is another good softwares for nonlinear analysis. In this software you can have two kind of push over analysis. You can use fiber sections.
Also for nonlinear analysis you can use perform 3D . It's a special software for performance based design. It's very powerful in nonlinear analysis and you can import or export models form etabs or SAP. In this software you can see collapse level without any convergence.
Opensees is code base software. It's very powerful and open source. But it is not user-friendly.
Usage of softwares are depends on your structure, 2D or 3D model and other parameters. I think these explanations are useful.
Good luck
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