Quick Guide to Strand 7

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Quick Guide to Beam Analysis using Strand7

Getting Started
Create a Node
Extrude by Increments
Number Nodes
Node Restraints
Beam Property
3D View of Beam
Views
Applying Loads Page
Analysis

Start Up
Launch the program and the menu bar appears at the top of the screen, below

Click on the New Page icon, extreme left to launch.

A window as below appears:

Ensure that the radio buttons are select as above; meters, Mega Pascal and Kilo Newton are the important ones.
To create the beam, or any model in Strand7 we create nodes and join them together with beam elements. Beam Elements are joined together to become plates, and plates can be joined together
to become bricks. There are two methods of creating the nodes / beams to create this simple model. One would be to create each node, one by one, then join the dots with beams to create the
beam. the other, slightly more complex, but much quicker is to extrude the nodes to create beams. Next we will create the initial node, then extrude it to create two six meter long beams that
will be simply supported.
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Create Node
Either click on Create > Node from the main menu or use Ctrl + W on the keyboard.

I prefer Ctrl + W, but it's a personal thing. Either way we now have a yellow dot near the bottom left of the screen.
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Quick Guide to Strand 7

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Extrude by Increments
Next select the Tools > Extrude > By Increments option and the menu below appears.

Enter the increment of 6.0m in the X direction and Repeat 2 as above. Select the node by clicking on the node select icon, on the right of the toolbar, and the select icon. Finally select the node.
Once selected it will change from yellow to magenta/pink.
This produces an additional two nodes, to the right of the existing with beams connecting the two of them.
To make life a little easier, and clearer, we will number the nodes. On a job of this size it seems unnecessary but if we get into the habit now, it will make life easier later on.
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Number Nodes

Right click anywhere in a blank area of the screen and select the Entity Display option from the pop up menu. Click the Node Numbers tick box, and then OK. We will be back here again, but
looking at the beam section later on!
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Node Restraints
Nodes are free to move in any direction, X, Y or Z and similarly can rotate about any of theses axis as below.

To restrain a node use Attributes > Node > Restraint

To restrain a node as required by a simply supported beam to cope with a UDL and/or Point Load it requires restraint against lateral movement in the x, y and z direction's and against rotation
in the x and y.

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Tick all the boxes and select the nodes (remember if a cantilever is included in the beam to leave it un restrained in the y direction. To verify that a node is restrained ensure that the node
selection tool is selected, hold down the shift button on the keyboard and move the mouse over the node.

You can see that the node above is restrained against lateral movement in the X, Y and Z as well as rotation in the X and Y directions.
Now that we have a beam modeled we need to give the beam some properties, such as a material and section profile.
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Beam Property
To do this we will use the key board shortcut Ctrl + Alt + B. The alternative is to select Property > Beam from the tool bar at the top of the screen.

As can be seen the material has been set as Steel and the section has been set as P145/155 under the geometry tab. The material is set by clicking on the Materials ... button, and selecting the
material from the list.
To select the user defined profile of a P145/155 use the Edit ... button, then select the BXS button from the next screen. The Strand sections are located on the 'Q' drive under Q:\Strand
Sections. Standard sections such as hot rolled channels are available under the Library... button for other uses. Whichever library is used remember to Assign the section, then close the window.
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3D View of Beam
When the window closes nothing appears to have happened! Remember when we displayed the node numbers, and I said we'd be back. Well here we are. Right click anywhere in a blank area
of the screen and select the Entity Display option from the pop up menu.

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This time we are in the Beam properties. Select the Solid radio button, and click on OK. The beam now looks like a P145/155. It doesn't? We need to zoom in so that you can see it properly.
Use the Zoom Icon as to the left, located just below the Tools and Tables menus. Now drag a window / box around the end of the beam to get a picture like the one of those
below.

The one on the right is an Isometric view, the one on the right is the standard view.
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Views

To change the view of the model, right click anywhere in the screen and select the Angles menu. We have selected the Isometric option on screen, but play around and see what the rest look
like.
Ok so now we have a double spanning, simply supported beam, a P145/155, locked in position in free space with no loads and no where to go. In the next step we will apply a UDL and a Point
Load.
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That's enough for one session. Follow the link to the Applying Loads section, on the next page.

Applying Loads

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