SAP2000 v25.3.

0 Release Notes
© 2024 Computers and Structures, Inc.

Notice Date: 05-June-2024

This document lists changes made to SAP2000 since v25.2.0, released 29-March-2024. Items marked
with an asterisk (*) in the first column are more significant.

Database Tables
Enhancements Implemented
* Ticket Description
10599 An enhancement has been made for steel frame design code AISC 360-22 to provide the
design result database tables.

Design – Steel Frame

Enhancements Implemented
* Ticket Description
* 2185 An enhancement was implemented to add a new database table that contains the details of
the deflection check for steel frame design, for all codes, when the design preferences have
been set to consider deflection.
9406 The following enhancements have been made to the steel frame design code NZS 3404:1997
based on the determination of whether a member or a segment of a member is fully lateral
restrained or not. A member or segment is now considered to be fully laterally restrained if
Mbx = Msx (NZS [Link].1) for that member or segment, which implies that alpha_m *
alpha_s > 1 according to NZS [Link](1). (1.) For a member with axial compression and
bending about the x-axis, the following moment ratio is checked per NZS [Link].1 only when
the member or segment does not have full lateral restraint: M*x / phi*M_ox. Here M*x is
the design moment, and M_ox is the nominal out-of-plane member moment capacity.
Previously, the ratio was checked irrespective of whether the member or segment had full
lateral restraint. (2.) When a member or segment is fully laterally restrained, and the PMM
interaction for a compression member with biaxial bending is checked per NZS [Link], then
M_cx is set to M_ix instead of min(M_ix, M_ox). For members that are not fully laterally
retrained, M_cx is set to the minimum of M_ix and M_ox, as done previously. (3.) When a
member or segment is fully laterally restrained, and the PMM interaction for a tensile
member with biaxial bending is checked per NZS [Link], then M_tx is set to M_rx instead of
the minimum of M_rx and M_ox). M_tx is still set to the minimum of M_rx and M_ox, as
done previously, for members that are not fully laterally retrained.
10504 An enhancement was made in steel frame design codes AISC 360-10, AISC 360-16, and AISC
360-22, where now the design amplifies the moments with B1 and B2 factors for all
members when the analysis method is set to “Limited First Order Analysis.” Previously, this
amplification was ignored since this method applies only when all ratios of axial forces to
their corresponding Euler buckling capacities were less than 0.5, and it was assumed that
the amplifications were small.
10506 An enhancement was made to steel frame design codes AISC 360-10, AISC 360-16, and AISC
360-22, where now the design amplifies the moments with any user-specified overwritten
B1 and B2 factors for all members when the second order method is chosen as “General
Second Order Method.” This applies to both the “Direct Analysis Method” and the "Effective
Length Method". Previously, amplifying the moments and axial forces with calculated or
overwritten B1 and B2 was done only when the second-order method was chosen as the
“Amplified First Order Method.” Allowing specification of overwritten B1 and B2 factors
provides more flexibility to the user. By default, B1 and B2 factors are not calculated and are
taken as one, if not overwritten, for the “General Second Order Method”, preserving the
previous behavior.

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Documentation
Enhancements Implemented
* Ticket Description
10502 A documentation modification was made for steel frame design per the AISC 360-16 and
AISC 360-22 codes where the corresponding manuals have been updated for single angle
sections to remove the phrase “unsymmetric (unequal leg)” from the paragraph in section
3.6.3, “Unsymmetric Members Subjected to Flexure and Axial Force.” This modification is a
documentation change only, and the calculated design results remain unaffected.

External Import and Export

Enhancements Implemented
* Ticket Description
* 10475 An enhancement to the import of DXF files was implemented. Polyface mesh objects,
created with the AutoCAD PFACE command, can now be imported as frame objects, shell
objects, and/or solid objects depending on the user's choices. Note that polyface mesh
objects can be imported as solid objects irrespective of the order in which their vertices and
faces are defined.
10602 Three enhancements to the import of DXF files were made: (1) It is now possible to import
DXF files that do not include a table of layers. (2) The DXF Import form in which the user
specifies the DXF layers from which objects are to be imported now only lists the relevant
layer names for each type of SAP2000 object to import - i.e. only the DXF layers containing
objects that can be converted to a given type of SAP2000 object. (3) During the import,
SAP2000 displays progress bars showing the degree of completion of the various import
operations.
10608 Two related enhancements to the import of .exr files from Revit and their export to it were
implemented. (1) SAP2000 now recognizes square, rectangular and round bars family types
exported from Revit and imports them as steel rectangular and circular sections. (2)
SAP2000 now exports steel rectangular and circular sections to Revit where they are
imported as square, rectangular, and round bars family types. Note that both enhancements
only work with Revit and CSiXRevit 2025.

Installation and Licensing

Enhancements Implemented
* Ticket Description
* 10471 The version number has been changed to v25.3.0 for a new intermediate release.

Results Display and Output

Enhancements Implemented
* Ticket Description
3617 The hinge status results for deformation-controlled (ductile) Interacting P-M2, P-M3, M2-M3
and P-M2-M3 hinges has been improved so that the hinge status is computed during each
step of analysis based on acceptance criteria strain limits that correspond to location of the
hinge state on its interaction surface at each step of analysis. This change resolves the issue
where, in previous versions, the acceptance criteria strain limits used to determine hinge
status were locked at the first instance of yielding, leading to unexpected hinge status
results when a hinge yielded in one primary direction and had significant deformation in the
orthogonal direction. The backbone curve shown in the Hinge Response plot (Display
menu>Show Hinge Results) is unchanged and will still display the backbone curve and
acceptance criteria strains corresponding to the first instance of yield for interacting hinges.

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User Interface
Enhancements Implemented
* Ticket Description
758 An enhancement was implemented in the design overwrites form to sort the frame section
names in alphanumerical order in the Current Design Section drop-down list.

SAP2000 v25.3.0 ISO #RELSAP2530 05-Jun-2024 Page 3 of 6

Database Tables
Incidents Resolved
* Ticket Description
10524 An incident was resolved where the editing the table "Hinges Def 09 - Interacting - Deform
Control - Acceptance" through Interactive Database Editing (Edit menu > Interactive
Database Editing) could cause the Force-Deformation data of the Interacting P-M2-M3 hinge
to be reset to default values. Additionally, the tolerance used for identifying the Axial Force
for Force-Deformation and Acceptance Criteria data in the "Hinges Def 08 - Interacting -
Deform Control - Force-Deform" and "Hinges Def 09 - Interacting - Deform Control -
Acceptance" tables have been changed to be relative to the maximum and minimum axial
forces to prevent round-off sensitivity that sometimes caused errors when importing these
tables.

Design – Aluminum Frame

Incidents Resolved
* Ticket Description
10585 An incident has been resolved for the aluminum frame design codes AA 2015, AA 2020, and
EN 1999:2007 in which the design of members with nonprismatic sections could not be
performed. Now they are designed properly.

Design – Cold Formed Frame

Incidents Resolved
* Ticket Description
10525 An incident was resolved for the AISI 2016 cold-formed steel frame design where the "Use
Lateral Factor" option in the Design Preferences did not work as expected. Previously, the
lateral factor was always being applied, irrespective of the "Use Lateral Factor" setting,
when the design provision was set to Allowable Stress Design (ASD) and the design load
combination had seismic, wind, wave, or a combination of different lateral loads.

Design – Concrete Shell

Incidents Resolved
* Ticket Description
10614 An incident has been resolved for the Eurocode 2-2004 concrete shell design where the
design for joints that had thickness overwrites showed inconsistent results when the model
units were switched. This affected the design results in the database table and the contour
plot. The issue could only be seen on the contour plot if the design result data for the
contour plot was cleared by going to the Concrete Shell Design Preferences form and clicking
OK in the form before displaying the design contour again with the different units.

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Design – Steel Frame
Incidents Resolved
* Ticket Description
9818 An incident has been resolved in the "Chinese 2018" steel frame design code in which the
plate slenderness ratio b/t limits of the non-seismic and seismic load combinations were not
reported correctly for some instances. The program sometimes reported the error message
"Section is slender" unnecessarily. The following issues are resolved: (1) The program now
automatically ignores the b/t check for tension and tensile-bending members. The users no
longer need to overwrite the "Iqnore b/t" check. (2) For compression-only (no flexure and
no axial tension) members, b/t is checked according to GB50017 section 7.3.1 and doesn't
check according to GB50017 section 3.5.1. Once b/t exceeds the limits per GB50017 7.3.1,
the program gives the design message "Section is slender (GB50017 7.3.1)". For design
combinations that include seismic effects, if b/t exceeds both GB50017 7.3.1 and GB50011
8.4.1, the program generates an error message: "Section is slender (GB50017 7.3.1,
GB50011 8.4.1)". (3) For flexural members or flexo-compression (all beams and columns,
and some braces) members, the program no longer checks b/t according to GB50017-2017
7.3.1. (4) For flexural or flexo-compression members (all beams and columns, and some
braces), if the section class is S5 (GB50017 5.3.1) but the width-to-thickness ratio does not
exceed the seismic design limit (GB50011 8.3.2 for beam and column, and 8.4.1 for brace),
the program no longer cites the latter code sections in the error messages. The only code
section that is cited in the error message is GB50017 3.5.1 in this case. At the same time,
since it is not a compression-only (no moment and no axial tension) member, the code no
longer cites section GB50017 7.3.1 in the error message. (5) For non-seismic members,
specified by modifying the "Seismic Design Grade" to "Non Seismic" in the Overwrites, the
program no longer outputs seismic limits. In such cases, the program no longer cites the
seismic code sections (GB50011 8.3.2 for beam and column and 8.4.1 for brace) in the error
messages. These changes do not affect the calculations but update the error messages with
appropriate code references and suppress extra error messages displayed for members with
longitudinal tensile forces.
10327 An incident has been resolved in the Chinese 2018 steel frame design code, in which the
design details available through Display Design Info, the database tables, and the Verify All
Members Passed command were inconsistent regarding the failure status as the design
details and database tables were not reporting the beam/column capacity ratio failures
whereas the Verify All Members Passed command was reporting all failures including
beam/column capacity failures. The design was okay. This was a reporting issue only. The
reports are now consistent.
10477 An incident was resolved where the documentation and Excel sheet for ten of the steel-
frame design verification examples was not updated for changes to the expected results due
to Ticket 10445, as reported in the ReleaseNotes for SAP2000 v25.2.0. Results produced by
SAP2000 were correct, this was a documentation issue only.
10495 An incident has been resolved for AISC 360-22, AISC 360-16, CSA S16-19, and CSA S16-14
steel frame design codes where the moment capacity for the lateral-torsional-buckling limit
state of box sections was incorrect when I22 > I33. In the AISC codes, the Cb factors, and in
the CSA codes, Omega2 factors were calculated for the M33 moment diagrams. Now they
are calculated based on the moments about the major axis of bending, M22.
10514 An incident has been resolved in steel frame codes "CSA S16-09" and "CSA S16-14" in which
the slenderness ratio check has now been enforced as mandatory per CSA [Link]. The
program used to issue a warning instead of an error. Now, the program issues an error
message and fails the member.
10600 An incident has been resolved in steel frame design code "AISC 360-22," in which Lb/ry limits
for SMF and IMF were erroneously being used as their limits from the older edition of the
code. The report was "Lb/ry > 0.095*E/(Ry*Fy) (AISC 341-22 E3.4b, D1.2b)" for SMF, and
"Lb/ry > 0.19*E/(Ry*Fy) (AISC 341-22 E2.4a, D1.2a)" for IMF. Now the report says, "Lb/ry >
0.086*E/(Ry*Fy) (AISC 341-22 E3.4b, D1.2b)" for SMF, and "Lb/ry > 0.17*E/(Ry*Fy) (AISC
341-22 E2.4a, D1.2a)" for IMF.

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 * Ticket Description
* 10622 An incident has been resolved for the incorrect value of the warping constant (Cw) stored in
section properties in old models. This incorrect value of Cw was used in steel frame design
when the model was opened in v25.2.0. This does not affect the design results when the
model is imported through text file as the Cw is re-calculated correctly in the text importing
process. Now when the model is opened, the Cw will be re-calculated correctly and the steel
frame design results will be corrected when re-designing.

External Import and Export

Incidents Resolved
* Ticket Description
8982 An incident affecting import of .EXR files from Revit has been resolved. Revit sloping
analytical elements drawn from highest point to lowest point and with an alignment other
than top-center, middle-center, bottom-center, were imported with an incorrect cardinal
point. When this occurred, the error was visible in extruded view and the analysis results
agreed with the model. This incident affected all versions of SAP2000 capable of importing
.EXR files from Revit.

Graphics
Incidents Resolved
* Ticket Description
6811 An incident was resolved where displaying the constrained joint symbol while also showing
the symbol for joints did not work as intended because the two symbols would overlap and
the constrained joint symbol would not be visible in DirectX display mode. This was a display
issue only.

Installation and Licensing

Incidents Resolved
* Ticket Description
10496 An incident was resolved in the CSILicenseAssistant where clicking on the User page (for
Cloud Sign-in license mode) would freeze on the 'Connecting' form and not sign in.

User Interface
Incidents Resolved
* Ticket Description
10497 An incident was resolved on the Assign Frame Point Loads form where the moment input
fields were disabled if a moment load was previously deleted using the form and then an
attempt was made to assign a new load. This was a user interface issue only.
10510 An incident was resolved where adding a new KDS 41 17 00-2019 or NBCC 2020 response-
spectrum function could cause an existing response-spectrum function to be overwritten.
10541 An incident was resolved in the precast U-girder frame-section definition form where the
validation of inputs was checking the wrong values when trying to enforce D2 + D3 + D6 + D7
<= D1. Results agreed with the values as actually defined.

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