Does anybody know what is the difference between "Member Load" &

"Physical Member Load" shown in the dialog box Load items?

First, we need to establish the difference between (analytical)

Members and Physical Members.

Analytical Members span from one node to another node. They consist
of just a single beam entity, and they are selected with the Beams
Cursor.

Physical Members are a formed assemblage of one or more analytical

members that are interconnected, collinear, have the same local axis
orientations, and do NOT occur in any other Physical Members.

Now it is a little easier to explain that Member Loads are applied to

Analytical Members, and Physical Member Loads can only be applied
to Physical Members.

Now comes the interesting part...what happens when you start

combining the two different types of loads?

From our Advanced Steel Design training manual:

"For a Physical Member that has already been assigned a physical

member load, the individual analytical members that comprise the
Physical Member adopt the same member loads as the Physical
Member. However, if a member load is assigned directly to any
analytical member of a Physical Member, the analytical member load
is superimposed on the physical member load."

In our Steel Design course, we use examples to illustrate the process

of forming (or auto-forming) Physical Members, along with assigning
Member Properties, Specifications, and Loads. We then go on to
demonstrate how shear and bending moment diagrams can be viewed
and data can be extracted for the entire length of a Physical Member
as opposed to working with output results in segmental pieces
corresponding to the constituent Analytical Members.
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Hi everybody, I have been following this forum for sometime now and i
find it very intresting and very informative.

I have a question regarding Staadpro.

How to mark a single beam (from column to column) instead of parts. I

know about physical member and Steel designer module but it seems
very tedious. Can anyone show a simpler method.

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You can form physical members while modeling , or you can use the
master slave option to simulate a slab and avoiding in this way to part
the beam in multiple members.

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have you tried the auto form member option in the steel designer
module? I believe that will reduce the time taken to form physical
members to a large extent.

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To get displacements and shear/bending diagrams for the entire

physical member you need to define physical members consisting of
the analysis segments as indicated in one of the posts below. After you
perform the analysis you can change your cursor to the physical
member cursor and double click on the physical member and the query
box should display the results for the physical member as a whole as
opposed to the individual analysis segments.

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Analytical member segments can only be part of a physical member if

these are connected, collinear, have the same cross sectional
properties, same material properties & also have the same local axis
orientation. Are all of these conditions satisfied for your model? If so,
and still the physical members are not being formed as desired, please
upload your .std file and let us know one set of member numbers for
which this is not working and we will look into it.

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Physical member command in STAAD

Designs of beams and columns are performed on physical member which are made of one or
more analytical beam parts

The members page is to allow the user to combine together a number of individual beam
elements and create members. All designs are performed on these members.

To create a physical member, use the 'Elements Cursor' to select the parts that combine to form a
design member (hold the 'ctrl' key to select a number of parts) and click on the menu item
'Members->Form member, or the toolbar icon.
Note:
Concrete beam and column designs can only be performed on physical members that have been
created from beam elements (not plate or solid elements).

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