New release of Oasys GSA focusses on the engineer’s working environment

Oasys GSA 10.0, the latest release of a software suite for advanced structural analysis and design, provides a comprehensive tool set for model creation, analysis, design and results visualization, and is compatible with leading BIM solutions used by engineers and architects.

Widely recognized as a benchmark in structural analysis, Oasys GSA has licensing options that make its power and speed available and affordable for any project. Choose from GSA Building, GSA Analysis, GSA Bridge, or the complete GSA Suite.

The latest release of Oasys GSA improves the tools for model creation, enabling engineers to move away from working directly with the analysis model towards working with the design model of the building.

There are significant new developments in the GSA design layer for slab and wall entities. These allow a complete description of the building to be defined in the design layer, with automated generation of analysis models.

As ever, the improvements have largely been driven by focusing on users’ needs and the tools they want for current and future work.

Key new features of Oasys GSA 10.0 are:

Slab and wall members — The GSA design layer has for some time provided beam and column members. The addition of new slab and wall members allows a more-complete definition of the building structure and for the interaction between 1D and 2D entities, e.g. the intersection of columns with slabs. This improves the mapping with BIM, making links with other software easier and more direct.

To support this new focus on the design model, the GSA design to analysis wizard has been updated to allow quicker generation of the analysis model. This means that the analysis model is quickly updated as the design model evolves. Slab and wall members are defined by outlines and can include voids, key lines and points. Meshing of the slabs for analysis now happens in the background, with no user interaction beyond setting a target element size.

Imperfection analysis — Design codes require that the engineer considers the effect of imperfections. GSA 10.0 enables the engineer to analyze a model with imperfections without changing the actual model geometry. Imperfections can be defined as a mathematical function, a set of displacements from an analysis case, or a set of random values. This approach satisfies part of the direct analysis requirements of the AISC.

Design codes —  GSA 10.0 adds support for concrete design to the AASHTO code and the updated and ASCE 7-16 seismic code.

Faster slab reinforcement calculations — In previous releases, the calculation of slab reinforcement has been ‘on-the-fly‘ in post-processing. A new option to calculate reinforcement and to store data in user modules allows for much faster calculation and display of results.

Multiple instances of GSA — Opening a new model will automatically open a new GSA session, so that only views and tables associated with a single model are displayed in a single session.

Engineers are invited to try GSA for a free 14-day trial, during which full support will be provided. Visit the GSA product page (https://www.oasys-software.com/products/structural/gsa) to find out more and register your interest.