Changing material of line members 2

[UcfSE]

I'm new to ETABS so please bear with me if this is a dumb question.

I need to change materials for some of my members. I have three steel materials created, named A36, A992 and A500B. Right now everything is A36 (I started with someone else's model). How do I assign a new material to members already modeled? I've searched the manuals and net and can't find anything. I don't know if I'm using the wrong search terms or what but would appreciate any help I can get.

 

[slickdeals]

Unfortunately, it is rather cumbersome. You will have to go into the definition of each frame member and change its material assignment.

Or you may choose to open the text file, usually <filename>.e2k and scroll down to frame definition and change material property.

I am not aware of a blanket selection of members and changing their material definition.

HTH

 

[UcfSE]

Thanks. How do I do your first suggestion, changing the definition?

 

[zeemas]

Slickdeals suggestions are right that you might need to go each member and change the material.
Here is my suggestion. I believe that you must know that material for which members need to change, first define a new material property. and then go to SELECT>BY FRAME SECTIONS....and select the member for which you want to change material. Go to assign and assign them new material.

Once you become more familiar with ETABS, you will find out many way to do that. So keep trying.

All the best.

 

[slickdeals]

@UcFSE,
In order to change definition, go to define-->frame sections--> select the member --> modify property --> Choose material from drop down box.

@Zeemas,
Are you sure you can assign a material property to the frame section? I believe you can only assign frame section to a line element. The material definition is done in the frame section definition.

I know that CSI is working on separating material from frame definitions.

 

[zeemas]

Slickdeals

You are right, we can change material only in frame sections. Thanks for correcting me.

 

[UcfSE]

Thanks slick. That worked. It seems like there'd be an easier way to do that.

 

[slickdeals]

Sure, no problem. If I am editing multiple members, I would do it in the input file (.e2k)

If you were working in SAP2000, you could use a database editing method where you can copy paste into excel and reimport from excel. That works way faster than editing the input file.

 

[zstone]

Slickdeals
How can you change material or member properties during import etabs text file,
Is possible to change other parameters, loads sections during importing of text file,
can you explain mee much more about this.

regards

 

[slickdeals]

@Zstone,
Once you create a ETABS file, it typically writes the input file as a .e2k or .$et file.

You should be able to open this in notepad or wordpad. Look for the following lines

$ FRAME SECTIONS
FRAMESECTION "W4X13" MATERIAL "STEEL" SHAPE "W4X13" FILE "D:\Program Files\Computers and Structures\ETABS 9\Sections8.pro"
FRAMESECTION "W5X16" MATERIAL "STEEL" SHAPE "W5X16"

You can define any materials you want in the model and it will be stored as a material definition. For example, in UcFSE's case, this could have been "A36", "A992" etc.

All you need to then do is to know which frame section gets assigned which property and then you can change it in the input.

As an example, if I wanted the W5x16 to be A36 steel, then all i would need to do is to change the material from "STEEL" to "A36"

It would then look like this
FRAMESECTION "W5X16" MATERIAL "A36" SHAPE "W5X16"

Once this is done, save the text file and import into ETABS.

File --> import --> e2k file.

The imported file will have the right assignment you need.

It is possible to change loads and other parameters, but this is rather tedious because each area element will have an ID and it is very convoluted to do it that way.