Panels and Floors

Panels and floors are output as Staad Pro plate elements.

When panels or floors are built at the corner of GENSECs, the distance between the point of the plate and the centre line of the GENSEC may be too big so that the output model of the plate are separated from the main structure. When set, the Panel Tolerance in the Settings part of the Structural Analysis Interface window causes the interface to scan for the nearest node within the thickness of the plate and uses that node as the node for the plate.

Plates can be meshed manually using the Mesh utilities provided in the Staad Pro interface and they can be output as well.

If the Staad Pro Mesh Generator is used, nodes must be manually created along the members supporting the plate. Using the Staad Pro interface manual mesh generator, the extra nodes along the member are created during the output.