It depends on the scope and objective of Your work. If it is an academic work, ABAQUS might be the best. In the case of professional, Staad/ Etabs or Sap2000 is a convenient option.
This is an important and subjective question, dear Navin Ramroop. It depends on the problem to be solved and the applied loads. I think Abaqus shows great interest in the last years due to its flexibility and accuracy of many problems. It is still most popular for academic and complex nature of problems. Other Softwares such as STAAD, SAP, ETABs, and others may be more useful for practical problems.
For frame, all softwares are preferable but steel related design you can use SAP 2000. Both ETABS and STAADPRO are widely used according to user and their personal and professional practices.
STAAD and E-tabs are more userfriendly and suitable if you are in the industry, ABAQUS is suitable if you are in academia and need detail and critical analysis.
I think that depends on what type of finite element you will use, if you consider line element SAP2000 and ETABS may be easier for operation than ABAQUS. However, if you want to see the detailing response of structure by using solid element, ABAQUS would be my first recommendation
We should also take into account which standard (e.g., Eurocode) you would like to follow when calculating the 3d frame. Not all standards are available in every software.
If you will be designing 3D frames in the process plant industries which are mostly steel structures, STAAD is usually the go-to software. If you will be dealing with buildings structures, that will be ETABS specialty. ETABS (or SAP) is also better when you are designing structures in seismic prone regions. I have not yet used ABAQUS but I regard it in same level with ANSYS which is for more detailed/advanced analysis typical for academic/research works.
ETABS is good over STAAD PRO if you are designing a reinforced concrete structure.The user interface is easy and the analysis values of RC structures are better and we get economical steel data from etabs compared to that of staad pro.
STAAD PRO is good over ETABS for the analysis of steel structures frames as the codes and user interface is better integrated in staad pro.
I use ETABS and I feel it's reliable for reinforced concrete design as it provides inbuilt options for optimisation,seismic analysis parameter calculations like p∆ analysis,non linear direct integration analysis,time histories, push over analysis.. It Even has options for wind analysis with loaded codes and can consider gust loads.Few of the above options are not available with staad .
ABAQUS is better for academic use. Most precisely for research purpose and critical analysis needed for specific Research. Navin Ramroop
In my opinion the best program is one that you know and understand.
Abaqus really has more tools and consideration than the others and is more used for research, but for a common structural analysis any of them will give you good results if they are assembled correctly
Each program had it own advantage and disadvantage. You have to know how to input the right data and know the output come out right or wrong. Software just the tool help you to calculate faster. Basic, advance and how to integrate the theory and design is you if you don't understand all of it from the bottom and up to the sky. That the way how to make the best design with the software.
ETABS is better than Staad Pro if you are designing or analysing RC structures. Also it gives economical steel data compared to Staad in commercial field. ABAQUS is used for research based work.
With Tedds, you can easily define structural frames such as trusses or continuous beams in 2D, analyze them, link the results to calculations and insert them into a document.
1. STAAD : - If you want to analyze the frame structure then it is very useful. You can also use SAP2000 for the same purpose. Basically for Micro Analysis.
2. ETABS : - It is mostly dedicated for Buildings. Specially for High-rise either RC or steel.
3. ABAQUS : It is use for elemental analysis. If you want to analyze some tricky element in your structure then you can use ABAQUS.
According to my experience between Ansys and Abaqus, the Abaqus is easier in modeling and better to show results of solids finite elements analysis. but staad pro is more useful for 3D frames.
Its depend on the type of problem that you need to simulate it. Etabs the easiest and helpful in commercial purpose but abaqus is very good for researchers.
Navin Ramroop Ji, I use all the Softwares depending on their credibility and accuracy on practical Ground. StaadPro is a master of Steel Structures where ETABS gives me the best results for my simpler structural Concrete. Other Simulations have their specialties . we just have to select the best as per our requirement.
I think it depends on what you are looking for. Most of these software have been precision to give very highly negligible errors, especially the new versions of ABACUS incorporating optimization techniques. ANSYS and LS-DYNA are very good software. There are other private software that are not in the open market. Talking about the best out of them for a researcher, depends on what you want to showcase visually, but are digitally the same. Thank you.
For professional analysis and design project CSI (ETABS, SAP 200, SAFE) products and STAAD Pro. is mainly used. But for research based analysis ABAQUS is preferable.
It depends on how much accuracy in the result you want... For building Extended Three Dimension Analysis Building System (ETABS) is the best software for modelling & analysis because it is specially for building. And in case of highly accurate result at each point then Abaqus is the best for it because it is the latest software for FEA.
SAP and ETABS are accurate and most suitable. Abaqus is a little complicated for such a simple task, unless you are analyzing this frame for scientific research.
I would recommend SEISMOSTRUCT for seismic analysis. It has a user-friendly modelling interface and can be used to execute different types of seismic analyses such as pushover (static and multi-modal), IDA etc. It can be freely downloaded from the seismosoft website. If you are using it for research purposes, you can request for an academic license free of cost.
Beside, Abaqus allows the user to write Python based scripts for model generation and post-processing. The advantage is that Python is a popular open-source platform independent language