SAP2000 File: Entities

Description

Nodes

SAP2000 uses Table: "JOINT COORDINATES" to specify a node coordinate at a given position according to a specified local coordinate system.

SAP2000 uses Table: "JOINT LOCAL AXES ASSIGNMENTS 1 - TYPICAL" and Table: "JOINT LOCAL AXES ASSIGNMENTS 2 - ADVANCED" to specify joint local coordinate systems.

Creating Nodes

Strand7 creates new nodes at the specified positions. The position is transformed into the global XYZ system according to the local coordinate system.

Nodal Coordinate Systems

Strand7 creates user-defined Cartesian coordinate systems from the joint local coordinate systems when required by a node attribute. Strand7 posts these coordinate systems as new user-defined coordinate systems with the default title "SAP Node UCS N".

Node Numbering

New Strand7 nodes are numbered sequentially (starting at 1), whereas nodes in the SAP2000 file can be arbitrarily named (as long as all node names are unique). In general, new Strand7 node numbers will be different to their corresponding SAP2000 node names.

Elements

SAP2000 uses Table: "CONNECTIVITY - FRAME", Table: "CONNECTIVITY - CABLE" and Table: "CONNECTIVITY - FRAME/CABLE" to define frame elements by element naming and node connectivity. Strand7 posts these elements as beam elements.

SAP2000 uses Table: "CONNECTIVITY - LINK" to define link elements by element naming and node connectivity. Strand7 posts these elements as beam elements.

SAP2000 uses Table: "CONNECTIVITY - AREA" to define area elements by element naming and node connectivity. Strand7 posts these elements as plate elements.

SAP2000 uses Table: "CONNECTIVITY - SOLID" to define solid elements by element naming and node connectivity. Strand7 posts these elements as brick elements.

Element Numbering

New Strand7 elements are numbered sequentially (starting at 1), whereas elements in the SAP2000 file can be arbitrarily named (as long as all element names are unique). In general, new Strand7 element numbers will be different to their corresponding SAP2000 element names. Where possible, the SAP2000 element numbers are assigned as Strand7 ID attributes.

Links

SAP2000 uses Table: "CONSTRAINT DEFINITIONS - BODY" to define rigid connections. Strand7 posts these rigid connections as Rigid links in the XYZ plane.

SAP2000 uses Table: "CONSTRAINT DEFINITIONS - EQUAL" to define master-slave relationships with respect to a specified coordinate system. Strand7 posts these master-slave relationships as Master-Slave links.

SAP2000 uses Table: "CONSTRAINT DEFINITIONS - LOCAL" to define master-slave relationships according to the joint local coordinate systems. Strand7 posts these master-slave relationships as Two Point links.

SAP2000 uses Table: "CONSTRAINT DEFINITIONS - ROD" to define pinned connections. Strand7 posts these pinned connections as Pinned links.

SAP2000 uses Table: "JOINT CONSTRAINT ASSIGNMENTS" to associate a constraint definition with specified nodes. Strand7 uses joint constraint assignments in association with a constraint definition to define links.