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Create load groups

Tekla Structural Designer
2022
Tekla Structural Designer

Create load groups

Load Groups facilitate the generation of combinations (primarily for design of industrial structures where many loading scenarios must be considered).

Overview of load groups

Features of load groups

  • Load Groups are an aid to building Combinations - both manually and using the Generator - and their use is entirely optional.
  • Once a Combination is built using Load Groups, the link to the Load Group is lost – the Combination is made up only of Loadcases. Only Loadcases and Combinations are analysed – Load Groups are not.
  • Each Load Group holds items of a single load type - e.g. “Dead” or “Live”...etc. - and can contain both multiple loadcases and other Load Groups
  • The fundamental Load Groups setting is the “Class” which is either “Inclusive” or “Exclusive”
    • When “Inclusive” – all loadcases are added at once into a combination
    • When “Exclusive” – loadcases are used one at a time in combinations. Thus for example, where an Exclusive Load Group contains four loadcases, the Generator will produce four combinations for all required combinations which include the group’s load Type (e.g. “Imposed”), each containing only one of the group’s four cases.

The load groups process

To make use of Load Groups you would proceed as follows:

  1. Define Loadcases as normal
  2. If required, create Load Groups from Loadcases and/or other Load Groups
  3. Create Combinations by combining Loadcases and/or Load Groups

The end result is Loadcases and Combinations (built up of factored loadcases). These are then run through analysis and design.

Create load groups

  1. On the Load tab, click Load Groups.

    The Loading dialog box opens on the Load Groups page. On this page, you can see all currently existing load groups.

  2. Click Add.
  3. Enter the Load Group Title.
  4. In Class, select the desired load group class.
    • Inclusive - all loadcases are added at once into a combination
    • Exclusive – loadcases are used one at a time in combinations
  5. Click the load group name in the left hand panel of the dialog to display the available loadcases.
  6. Select each loadcase in turn to be included and click the right arrow button to copy it into the load group.
    Note:

    A load group can only contain items of one load type.

  7. Click OK.

    Tekla Structural Designer adds the new load group to the list of load groups.

Inclusive and exclusive load groups example

If you were to manually create a combination to include:

  • Loadcase 1
  • Load Group 1 ("Inclusive" which contains Loadcases 2 & 3)
  • Load Group 2 ("Inclusive" which contains Loadcases 4 & 5)
  • Load Group 3 ("Exclusive" which contains Loadcases 6 & 7)
  • Load Group 4 ("Exclusive" which contains Loadcases 8 & 9)

When you click OK to close the Loading dialog, the following combinations are created with the relevant factors according to Load Type

Combination Contains Loadcases
Combination 1 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 + 8
Combination 2 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 + 9
Combination 3 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 7 + 8
Combination 4 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 7 + 9
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