I have a Validation Warning > Model > General - "Member may not be supported as intended". How do I resolve it?

Issue

Tekla Structural Designer will flag elements that may not be supported as you intend. Whilst this is a Warning rather than an error it can have design implications and could also cause problems with analysis. We recommend that this error is never ignored and that the engineer review their model to ensure that both the connectively and design model are as they intend.

All members with the issue will be flagged with a warning message in the Validation Status Tree as shown below.

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Resolution and Examples

In all cases, double click the warning and the problem members will be highlighted in the Structural View.

Tip - use Scene Content > Members. Uncheck “Geometry” so that you can see just the 'wires' of members - this makes it easier to see the member connection - or lack of it.  Also zoom into each end of the problem element(s) as shown in the picture below. Then check - are both ends connected as intended?

Example 1 - Members not connected as intended

This can result from errors in modeling and can also occur with models imported via Structural BIM (e.g. from Tekla Structures or Revit) if the analytical wires were not correctly connected in the BIM Application.

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Modify the position of the end node so that it is supported at the head of the column or primary beam as intended.

After making amendments to the model, undertake a Validate command again to see if the issue is resolved.

Example 2 - Cantilevers not set correctly

Another situation where this Validation Warning may occur is for cantilevering beams that do not have their releases set correctly as cantilever.

This is most common on cantilevering concrete beams but can occur with steel beams also.

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Note that if a cantilever beam does not have the releases set as cantilever, but another beam connects to it, this warning will not appear.  This is illustrated in the example below using the same layout as above, but with a beam connecting the cantilever ends.   The engineer should always review their model for such situations and use the cantilever end setting as appropriate.

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This issue can be more problematic for steel structures where beams are commonly not continuous.  In this case, not using releases and the cantilever end setting correctly can result in cantilevering beams being pinned to the supporting member producing mechanisms as illustrated below.  Setting the cantilever end correctly will both set the appropriate end to 'free' and fix both ends ensuring that the analytical model is stable (providing the rest of the structure is) and that the design is appropriately for a cantilever.

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