I have a concrete sluice gate modelled as quad elements in sofiplus. Now I need to design a steel frame bridge to put on top of it.
Is it possible to model this in two separate cad files and the reference the steel geometry into the concrete file? Kind of like the XREF function in AutoCAD, but with the SOFiSTiK geometry elements instead?
I’m aware that I mesh a partial system, effectively generating the same result, but I would like to compartmentalize the models in separate files if possible.
This is only possible via some tricks.
One trick is shown in the attachment:
Open CDB_01.dat and calculate it; check in Graphic where the system is (coordinates) and beam and node numbers
Open CDB_02.dat and calculate active moduls; check also here where the system is (coordinates) and beam and node numbers.
Open file “cdb_01_exp.dat” and modify input in line SYST => it must be SYST REST (see attached file “cdb_01_exp_modified_manually.dat”; save file under name “cdb_01_exp_modified_manually.dat”.
Calculate in CDB_02 last +APPLY and check again the system => now both are merged together.
If you do this not with SOFiMSHA but with SOFiMSHC (so with SOFiPLUS) you must assure that numbers of elements are used only once. To reach this you must:
define in both systems the same GDIV
define for structural elements in one system for example numbers from 1001, in the other from 1-999
use different group numbers in both systems.
if you want to connect both parts you must at the end connect the nodes that are at the same place with some couplings; this you would have to do with a further SOFiMSHA-run
when using this approach it’s not possible to define structural-element-related loads in SOFiPLUS because in the merged system there are only strutural elements from CDB_02
Another approach can be to make an “Export to dat” of all SOFiMSHC-elements of both systems and copy manually the input togehter.
A third approach would be to copy the elements in SOFiPLUS from one dwg to the other via the clipboard. This is probably the easiest way.