what program would this be used in? I'm familiar with using ETABS although I assume this would be in SAP or some other program. (I'm a buildings structures guy). I ask because when modeling in ETABS and to a large extent in RISA as well, most FEA objects just end up being line objects that...
To answer the varying load question, you can draw null areas to add in additional load. Put a null area for each area with a different load. I do this all the time for areas of slab that need to receive different loading.
One thing im not sure is if you can enter trapezoidal loads. There might...
I did a similar thing of assigning soil springs in my model. Talking with tech support I also assigned some springs in the 1 and 2 direction so the building would not slide all over during lateral loading.
One thing to watch for is if you have an uplift case (fluid pressure uplift) you may want...
