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MIDAS advantages over LUSAS

(The reader is advised that below is based on the understanding of LUSAS and
subjective views of MIDAS. The writer has 4+ years of experience in using LUSAS and 4
years of experience in MIDAS Civil/FEA)

Key point in the comparison

LUSAS is London University Structural Analysis Software which is a result of well researched studies
and finite element analysis application. Whilst it is a very good FEA software package, it lacks
practicality, i.e., practice oriented commercial applications. MIDAS is more application oriented and
more practical with a similar level of FEA capabilities. MIDAS is fast and has automated features that
are absent in LUSAS. MIDAS presents intuitiveness and smart features that are necessary for
commercial projects, resulting in time-saving, reduced costs for project completion, enhanced
productivity and thus an increase in profit for the user.

1.Ease of Modelling in MIDAS

LUSAS has different section, material and beam element types for different types of analyses. One
must select the correct material, the correct section and the corresponding correct beam type to
carry out a given type of analysis. Several beam types like thin beam, thick beam, curved beam,
grillage beam, nonlinear beam, etc. need to be selected. For example, if the user were to do a
nonlinear analysis, he must select from a dropdown menu, the specific nonlinear beam (out of 10
other such types of beams). Then he needs to assign the correct nonlinear material and the correct
section (out of a given choice of many sections based on the analysis types). If it is a vibration
analysis, then he needs to resort to another set of beams. Overall, just to assign properties, the user
spends considerable time involved in so many steps.

This requires an in-depth knowledge of finite element modelling and the thorough study of the
analysis manual of LUSAS, which is time consuming for a beginner and is also subject to chances of
committing mistakes, especially for a bridge project where so many elements need to be generated.

MIDAS has only one type of beam element that can participate in all types of analyses (linear,
nonlinear, static, dynamic, with shear or without shear deformations, etc.). The user does not have
to waste time choosing the right kinds of beams to start with. MIDAS internally does this selection
for the user. MIDAS being fundamentally the same as LUSAS in terms of finite element analysis, the
automation of property selection as per analysis type gives the user to think more about other
important things like loads and boundaries assignment, resulting in less chances of committing
mistakes.

A good example: The user does not need to run a separate nonlinear analysis in MIDAS to consider
tension or compression only elements. In a single linear static analysis, MIDAS considers the non-
linearity in these elements.

Inference: MIDAS reduces redundant steps in the modelling process

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2.Flexible Unit Systems in MIDAS

LUSAS restricts the user to work on a single unit system because it is a more research oriented and
finite element analysis oriented software package. It concerns only the numbers in the calculation.
Numeric numbers entered in LUSAS are not associated with units. There is nothing wrong with the
numbers because that is what is required when solving the equations internally. But for the user, he
needs to write down every input as a single unit system and ensure that he correctly converts all the
output into the desired units.

Consider an assessment of an old bridge where all the sketches and drawings available are in
Imperial units and the user must generate the analysis report in Metric or SI system. MIDAS
eliminates such unnecessary conversion. MIDAS allows the user to enter the numbers in his model
with any corresponding units in any combination at any time during the input and output processes.
The user can create the model in lbs, kip, in, ft and display the results in kN, N, m, cm, mm. This
means more time for engineering and analysis and no more non-productive time involved in
unnecessary unit conversions.

Inference: MIDAS has ability to toggle between unit systems at any time

3.Fast Quality Meshing in MIDAS

MIDAS meshes very fast in auto-meshing. MIDAS undergoes many checks on the mesh shape to
provide the most optimised mesh. The benefit is more pronounced in large geometry projects. At
times, the calculations also return an error if MIDAS cannot find the optimised mesh.

MIDAS Civil and Midas FEA generate mesh with proper connectivity within seconds. For example,
MIDAS solid (3D) auto-mesher can generate 200,000 tetrahedral elements within a minute. MIDAS
FEA saves its meshing time by providing the user smart geometry modification tools, which enable
him to modify the geometry in the correct way so that every time the user meshes it, he always gets
the optimised mesh without any delay in mesh generation.

Inference: Fast & quality auto-meshing in MIDAS

4.Bridge Wizards to expedite modelling

Having an academic origin, LUSAS lacks in smart Bridge wizards especially for segmental PSC and
long span bridges. LUSAS has a Bridge Module, but it hardly contains any bridge specific wizards.
The module provide one basic grillage wizard and one basic Steel Composite Bridge Designer wizard.
These two wizard are underdeveloped compared to the capabilities of the wizard in MIDAS Civil.
Even the bridge module is similar to the general structural analysis module. MIDAS is suited for real
life commercial projects where the user would like to do quick comparative or parametric studies for
preliminary design.

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MIDAS has a set of wizards that are very practically oriented and catered to specific types of
construction (balanced cantilever method, incrementally launched method, PSC, Steel Composite
Bridge, Grillage, Transverse Analysis, Cable Stayed Bridge, Suspension Bridge etc.) that can model all
the construction stages and all the loads and boundaries just by entering the relevant parameters.
The model created with the wizard is ready to be analysed whereas the models generated with the
wizards in LUSAS are limited to the geometry only therefore the engineer will have to apply section
properties loading and boundary manually.

The wizard available in MIDAS Civil can reduce the modelling time by 50% to 80% according to the
specific case.

Inference: Fast and efficient bridge modelling is the philosophy of MIDAS

4.Fast & Comprehensive Vehicle Load optimisation

This is probably the most publicised feature of LUSAS. LUSAS does not do an influence line analysis
for live load optimisation, which basically means that for a given run of a vehicle over a bridge span,
it creates numerous load cases pertaining to each position of the vehicle. This means a significant
drain on analysis time.

What happens when one wishes to combine two vehicles and find out the worst cases in LUSAS?
The user has to manually select the particular load cases and combine them for the worst cases.
This becomes even worse when the vehicles start straddling between lanes (HB or UK Annex Special
Vehicles). Complications further increase when the user is faced with splits in the bridge, i.e., a lane
splits into 2 lanes. Combining vehicles running on split lanes and finding out the worst case is not
trivial in LUSAS.

Also, since so many load cases are generated in LUSAS, the user is ended up with a large analysis file,
which sacrifices the memory as well as the analysis time.

In LUSAS if Vehicle Load Optimization (VLO) is used the influence analysis is performed on influence
lines selected by the engineer. Influence lines analysis must be set up correctly in order to get a
realistic load pattern of the traffic loading. As the influence lines analysed are set up by the engineer
there is room for human error in overlooking some influence lines in favour of others and a more
time must be spent in judging which locations are going to be assigned an influence line analysis
control.

MIDAS eliminates all the above issues by following the influence line or influence surface analysis
approach for all nodes and elements modelled. MIDAS’ influence line analysis finds out the worst
position automatically, does all the combinations internally and directly provides the worst effects,
saving both analysis time and memory of the computer. MIDAS identifies the vehicle positions
causing the worst effects. MIDAS can very easily deal with split lanes. Moving Load Tracer allows to
visualise the worst load pattern of traffic load for a given location and effect and also to extract the
load pattern into a static load case.

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Inference: Very smart and time saving moving load optimiser for all kinds of
bridge geometries

6.Construction Stage Analysis

LUSAS follows a workaround approach for construction stage analysis, which is very basic and
manual and involves sequential loading in the nonlinear analysis option of LUSAS, using the Birth and
Death feature (Activate/Inactivate). One must individually select a group of elements and assign
them the Birth option to bring them under a nonlinear analysis step and simultaneously apply the
corresponding load. The visualisation of this becomes very difficult in LUSAS if the user wishes to
edit the data in any stage.

If Creep and Shrinkage must be included in the analysis, in LUSAS this is possible only with “Time
Domain Non-Linear Viscous Analysis”. This type of analysis is cumbersome in terms of convergence
and renders the construction stage analysis in LUSAS highly inefficient, therefore rarely used in
practice.

In MIDAS, the user can group elements and activate or inactivate the group in the construction stage
input window of MIDAS without modifying any property of the element itself, leading to outstanding
time saving, efficiency and flexibility. In fact, without changing the base model, the construction
Stage groups can be rearranged and modified to the likings of the engineer and the sequence
modified at any time without effort. The benefits of MIDAS further extend if the bridge type is of
significant length and spans with a large number of construction stages. The user simply groups
necessary elements and keeps on activating and deactivating the group whenever needed. Same is
true for the case of loads and boundaries. It is also easy to visualise which elements, loads and
boundaries have been activated in a specific stage in MIDAS.

MIDAS is also able to model the change of section properties for composite sections from the pre-
composite stage to the composite stage. This feature is not supported in LUSAS

Inference: A sensible and logical construction stage generation in MIDAS

7. Soil Structure Interaction

LUSAS has generic functionality to model soil structure interaction, but is not automated. LUSAS has
many types of spring elements that can be used to simulate soil structure interaction. This involves
a tedious job of converting raw geotechnical data into spring stiffness for each and every node of the
pile or abutment of an integral bridge. The best way suggested by LUSAS manual itself is by using
“Trilinear Earth Pressure” joints. The joints must be created separately for each element or node on
which the boundary condition is needed. The application of the joint involves the selection of slave
and master nodes making the process quite slow for large number of nodes and elements.

MIDAS Surface Spring supports and Integral Bridge Spring supports can automatically calculate the
spring stiffness values for piles and abutments of an integral bridge directly from the raw

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geotechnical data (e.g. Type of Soil). The application of the boundary condition is easily achieved by
selecting all the elements to which the support is to be applied: the software will calculate the
stiffness based on the soil parameters and the coordinates of the nodes automatically so that the
application of the boundary can be done in one single step for large groups of nodes or elements.
This means a significant saving in modelling time.

Inference: Effective Automated Soil structure interaction in MIDAS

8. Dynamic Analysis
LUSAS provides a very expensive pedestrian vibration analysis module called the Interactive Modal
Dynamics, IMD (the most expensive module of LUSAS). A very few companies have this (expense +
rarely people do vibration analysis on common bridges in the UK). It is simply the modal
superposition method of dynamic analysis, which even the basic version of MIDAS can handle. Even
though LUSAS is so strong in its research background, it lacks full scale dynamic analysis, also called
the direct integration analysis, which is a key analysis type for considering both nonlinear and
dynamic effects in a structure in MIDAS.

MIDAS ranks the top when it comes to dynamic analyses and supports both linear and nonlinear
dynamic analyses. MIDAS can handle vibration analyses ranging from high speed train loads to
pedestrian bridges very fast and effectively. The Time History Dynamic Analysis with Material and
Geometrical Non-linearity represents the high-end capability offered by the software.

Inference: Dynamic Analysis is of the highest standard in MIDAS

9. Cable Optimisation
LUSAS does cable tuning creating a separate set of load cases and analysis for it. Cable tuning is
possible if the correct type of mesh property is assigned during modelling.

MIDAS supports Cable Tuning and Unknown Load Factor analysis for any line mesh type. It also
supports catenary cable elements for which it automatically calculates the optimised cable forces
required for the equilibrium state of the bridge. Cable Tuning can be also done in real-time via a
graphic interface. Additional tools like Lack of fit forces and camber automatic calculation for the
cable stayed bridge are the key features that MIDAS generates for cable structures. Unknown Load
Factor can also be applied to any type of load applied to the structure to identify best equilibrium
conditions at concept design stage. MIDAS has been used in numerous long span cable bridge
projects across the globe.

Inference: Automated Cable Tuning and Optimization in MIDAS

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9. Tendon Layout Generation and Modification

LUSAS allows to model single and multi-tendon layouts only using a “Tendon Wizard”. The load is
converted into point loads applied to the associated line elements through “Search Areas” these
parameters cannot be modified once the pre-stress load is generated as the pre-stress load cases is
locked by the wizard. The only way to modify the pre-stress input is to restart the wizard from the
beginning even if the change is just in one tendon or the layout changes slightly. The overall process
of applying pre-stress load in LUSAS is therefore quite cumbersome and time consuming. Further,
the user is often confused by the procedure for applying the loads, making this function not very
popular in the day-to-day practice. It’s likely that pre-stress is modelled as an external load
calculated with spreadsheets or other software (i.e. ASBD aka SAM).

MIDAS Civil allows for the most flexible tool for inputting tendon layout. The MIDAS Civil “Tendon
Layout” enables the user to model tendon layouts and allows for selection and editing of single or
group of tendons. It also provides copy and move function for quick generation of complex layout.
The input of a single or multiple tendons can be handles within the same window whereas in LUSAS
tendon application procedure is separate for both cases.

Additionally, MIDAS civil recognises standard precast sections (for UK/Italy/US) and automatically
generates the tendon layout based on standard manufacturer instructions.

After generation of the tendon elements, the editing of the tendon input can be operated without
running the tendon layout tool. This include changing the tendon coordinates, load, property as
none of them is locked by the software, as it would happen with LUSAS.

Inference: Practical Tendon Layout Generation and flexible pre-stress load input
editing in MIDAS.

10. Post Processing

LUSAS provides purely finite element based results, which must be carefully interpreted by the
engineer before converting them into practical engineering results. In order to compensate for this,
LUSAS allows the user to enter basic built-in functions to convert the FE results into engineering. If
he wishes to write such equations every time and in addition faces a limit to the type of equation,
then this definitely presents difficulty.

MIDAS directly provides the user the engineering results. Eg: MIDAS will provide line force diagrams
in slabs instead of just giving colourful contours. It automatically provides the design Wood Armer
moments in slabs for calculating reinforcement. If plate elements are used “Virtual Beam Elements”
can be defined in which the software calculates the resultant forces and moments for a group of
plate element thus extracting results as for a beam instead of forces for the single plate elements.
For erection of structures, MIDAS produces the construction camber graphs and fabrication
cambers. For pre-stress analysis, MIDAS provides animated review of pre-stress losses with time
over several construction stages. One of the most useful engineering outputs for composite steel
bridges in MIDAS is the ability to directly provide separate member forces in slabs and in steel

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girders. All the results in MIDAS can be animated and seen graphically to give the user a feel for the
structural behaviours.

Inference: Very intuitive and practice based post-processing results in MIDAS

11. Design Checks

LUSAS does not perform automated code checks. It is primarily an analysis package.

MIDAS is able to perform automated design checks to a wide range of codified standards including
Eurocodes and ASHHTO just to name a few. MIDAS Civil performs steel, concrete, PSC and
composite section design checks. It also produces Excel or .txt detailed calculation reports.

Inference: Automated member design checks in MIDAS

12. Auto conversion of Line beam model to Solid model

LUSAS does not have a converter to directly convert a line beam model into a solid or a shell model
for detail analysis. MIDAS provides such capabilities. The user can convert any line model into a full
pledged solid (3D) model for detail analysis in FEA.

Inference: Ability to do preliminary and detail analysis with a single line model file
in MIDAS

14. Critical Buckling Load Factor (Rating) for Railway Bridge Assessment
LUSAS can only provide critical buckling load factors relative to combined dead and live loads in a
railway bridge. However, in obtaining the Assessment Rating for a bridge, the buckling load factors
should be calculated relative to the Live Load only. Combining all load cases for buckling load factor
calculation results in a very conservative Rating value with a low Rating (<RA 8). MIDAS can carry
out buckling analysis considering both dead and live loads, but it also provides the user the flexibility
to obtain the critical load factors with respect to the live load only, thus leading to a more realistic
Rating for the bridge.

Inference: MIDAS Buckling analysis directly provides the Rating of a bridge for
Railway Bridge Assessment

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