In your RISA folder there should be some sub-folders:
\manuals\ which will contain a User's Guide with step by step instructions for building a model.
\tutorials\ which contains the models described in the user's guide at various steps along the way.
\examples\ which has a number of simple example models.
In addition to that, there are a number of videos and verification problems and such on the RISA website (
This is the thread for me. I'm finally going to take some time and try to figure out RISA this weekend. I would like to try and model a simple wood portal frame and then compare the results with my manual analysis and try to make some sense of it all. I've used STAAD quite a bit in the past but RISA's interface is completely foreign so excuse my ignorance and "stupid" questions.
A confused student is a good student.
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson, PE