Structural Software- Most Bang for Buck??

[tmoe]

Hello all,

I'm an early career engineer, (2.5 yrs) interested in making a move from a smaller hometown company to a larger structural company in the city. While I understand that ultimately I will have to learn and adapt to the in-house software that my future employer uses, I am interested in becoming more adept at computational structural design in general.

My question is, what software do most structural engineers use? There seem to be a number of them on the market. Is there one that is most popular? One that is good to start with? What are your recommendations?

I have some experience with Risa3D and a little bit with SAPP2000. None with STADD Pro.

thanks everyone

 

[WiSEiwish]

I have experience with both STAAD and RISA and I like RISA a lot better. It seems to be a lot more user friendly.

 

[PUEngineer]

RISA, STAAD, SAP...they're essentially all the same...essentially. You know how to use one, it's fairly easy to move to the next one, look at the pretty pictures mommy. Download demos of the programs to try, if you can.

I don't know what kind of work you're looking to do, but I think your time would be better spent downloading REVIT (free to use in demo mode, but you can't save) and learn that. Just a suggestion.

If you're looking for some free, no frills FEA software to mess around with; check out mastan2.com.