Tasks, Cases and the Analysis Wizard

With the exception of simple linear static analysis, the Analysis Wizard is used to set up the data required for an analysis – both the task and case information. The wizard hides the complexity of the inter-relationship between these from the user.

The starting point is to select the type of analysis required, then depending on the analysis type a different path is followed through the wizard, setting up the task and a case parameters.

Setting up static cases

The most common analysis in GSA is a static analysis and this can be the most tedious analysis to set up. This is particularly so when there are many analysis cases or other issues such as stages or load combinations that have to be considered. Consequently, for a static analysis (either linear, P-delta or full nonlinear) the Static Analysis Cases page is probably the most significant page in the Wizard.

When a simple analysis of all the load cases is required the “Create default cases” option gives an easy way to set up the analysis cases. Likewise the copy cases from task option allows the loading conditions from an existing task to be copied directly to the current task.

The Add and Edit buttons allow quick assembly of new or editing of existing analysis cases. These buttons bring up a separate dialog that displays all the load cases that exist along with the load case titles (if they exist). Double-clicking in this list append the load case to the load description. This makes it straightforward to define loading such as 1.4 × "dead" + 1.6 × "imposed".

In addition to these there is a set of buttons that allow case names and descriptions to be copied to and pasted from the clipboard. This means that a set of analysis cases can be set up externally, for example in a spreadsheet:

dead → L1

imposed → L2

dead+imposed → 1.4L1 + 1.6L2

and then copied and pasted directly into the wizard.

The up/down arrows give a convenient way to reorder the analysis cases in the task.