SAFE v20.1.

0 Release Notes
© 2022 Computers and Structures, Inc.

Notice Date: 02-February-2022

This document lists changes made to SAFE since v20.0.0, released 30-September-2021. Items marked
with an asterisk (*) in the first column are more significant.

Analysis
Enhancements Implemented
* Ticket Description
* 7870 A change has been made to how equilibrium errors are checked for convergence in
nonlinear static load cases. Previously, the relative contributions of force unbalance to
moment unbalance were dependent upon database length units. This tended to over-
emphasize moments for small length units (mm, inch), which are the default database units.
In certain cases, this could lead to larger force equilibrium errors than expected based on
the relative convergence tolerance specified for a load case (the default is 0.0001). Now
these equilibrium measures are independent of length units, and they are better balanced
between force and moment for typical structural dimensions. Because of this change, the
results of nonlinear static load cases may differ when run in the new version compared to
the previous version. Generally any change will be small, but it may be more significant for
sensitive or ill-conditioned models. For example, the uplift of isolated footings can be a
sensitive problem that may be affected by this change, with the new results likely to be
improved. Note that nonlinear static analysis is an approximate, iterative process. Results
should be confirmed by engineering judgment, and re-running certain load cases using
progressively smaller convergence tolerances may be necessary to get the expected
equilibrium for some models.

Detailing
Enhancements Implemented
* Ticket Description
519 An enhancement was implemented for Detailing where general grid systems are now
available in frame layout and rebar drawings.
7529 A message stating "Note: Previous changes will be discarded when you click OK" has been
added in the "Bar Selection and Curtailment Rule" form for detailing.
* 7878 Detailing is now available for composite-beam floors modeled and designed in SAFE, and can
be accessed using the menu command Detailing > Steel Detailing menu. Detailing can be
viewed and edited within SAFE, and the results used for further design checks. Detailing
performed in SAFE can be exported to CSiDetail v20, when it becomes available, to produce
schematic drawing sheets that can be further edited.
* 7880 Slab and beam detailing have been enhanced to include PT tendon profiles. This includes
showing the tendons and jacks in 3D views of slab reinforcement, and showing the tendon
profiles in beam elevations and sections.
7881 Waffle-slab and ribbed-slab detailing have been enhanced to include the following: (1.)
Handling of reinforcement in waffles and ribs for small web widths, and (2.) The addition of
a new rib-reinforcement view.
* 7946 The detailing Bill of Quantities
(BOQ) table has been enhanced with the addition of quantities for steel beams
and tendons.

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Drafting and Editing
Enhancements Implemented
* Ticket Description
7514 An enhancement has been made to add on-screen tools for measuring line lengths, the
angles between two lines, and the areas and perimeters of closed polygons. These tools can
be accessed from View > Measure menu item.
7767 An enhancement was made to allow on-screen editing of Rebar Objects using the reshaping
tool.

External Import and Export

Enhancements Implemented
* Ticket Description
7874 An enhancement was made to speed up import of large architectural models from DXF files.
Also a progress bar has been added for these imports.
7945 An enhancement to the import of DXF files as floor plans has been implemented. The option
to import joint locations from DXF files, which had been available in SAFE v16 and earlier but
was no longer available in SAFE v20.0.0, has been restored.

Installation and Licensing

Enhancements Implemented
* Ticket Description
7471 The version number has been changed to v20.1.0 for a new intermediate release.

Structural Model
Enhancements Implemented
* Ticket Description
7758 An enhancement has been implemented to add tendon materials per GB 50010-2010
standard to the material library for Chinese region.

User Interface
Enhancements Implemented
* Ticket Description
7593 An enhancement was implemented to clarify the specification for the results to be saved for
nonlinear static load cases: The option to save (or not to save) positive displacement
increments has been removed as this option is not relevant to the types of nonlinear
analyses available in SAFE.
7956 An enhancement has been implemented adding tool buttons to the main tool bar for quick
access to information on concrete slab design, concrete beam design, composite beam
design, punching shear design, and crack width display.

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Analysis
Incidents Resolved
* Ticket Description
* 7506 An incident was resolved where nonlinear static and staged-construction load cases could
converge with equilibrium errors that were larger than expected when large external loads
were applied. When this occurred, the errors were typically in a direction or region of the
model not significantly affected by the external load. For example, horizontal reactions in
one portion of the model may be out of balance due to large vertical loading in a different
region of the model. The effect of this error was negligible for most models. Now
equilibrium convergence is measured using the relative convergence tolerance times the
magnitude of the internal forces, rather than the previous approach of considering the
larger of the internal and external forces. This change will have no impact on most models,
and will tend to increase iteration and improve equilibrium for other models. A few models
that previously converged may now fail to converge under the tightened equilibrium
requirements; this can usually be resolved by improving the stability or conditioning of the
model. Note that the behavior of the pure event-to-event solution strategy is not affected
by this change, except that the reported equilibrium error could be larger; no other results
will be affected.
7515 An incident was resolved where, when opening SAFE v16 or earlier files in SAFE v20, the
assignment of "No Auto Mesh" to an area object was lost and the area object may have
been further meshed for analysis. When this occurred, results agreed with the model as
further meshed. In cases where this was applied to membrane or plate (not shell) objects,
the additional meshing could cause instability or convergence problems. Simply reassigning
"No Auto Mesh" resolved the issue. Now this assignment is preserved when opening models
from older versions.
7646 An incident was resolved when using the British, Indian, Hong Kong or Singapore concrete
design codes where the procedure used for calculating cracked floor deflections was slightly
different from that recommended for these codes. The difference was mostly in
interpolating the stiffness between cracked and uncracked section stiffness. Instead of using
a linear interpolation as expected, a parabolic interpolation as implemented for other design
codes was being used. This only affected SAFE V20.0.0.
7942 An incident was resolved for Waffle and Ribbed slab where inplane-stiffness was using total
waffle/Ribbed slab system depth instead of using equivalent slab thickness. This behavior
only affected the inplane deformations and out-of-plane behavior was not affected.
8052 An incident was resolved where a tolerance issue related to intersection of nearly parallel
lines was causing a problem with slab meshing in a particular model. When this occurred,
the effect was visually obvious in the analysis mesh.

Data Files
Incidents Resolved
* Ticket Description
7736 An incident was resolved where slab types designated as "Mat" or "Footing" in slab area
sections were not written to *.F2K or *.$SF model text files. Importing such *.F2K or *.$SF
file into SAFE would set these slab properties to the default thickness.

Design – Composite Beam

Incidents Resolved
* Ticket Description
8088 An incident was resolved which affected composite beam design per AISC360-16, BS5950-
1990 and CSA S16-14. The steel tensile elastic stress check was not being performed unless
the beam happened to have an output station at the exact location of the maximum positive
bending moment. Composite beams designed by other codes were not affected because
these codes do not mandate that particular check. When this occurred, the strength of the
beams was unaffected.

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Design – Concrete Frame
Incidents Resolved
* Ticket Description
7955 An incident was resolved for PT beam design where the design for strength was being
performed over all load combinations selected for concrete design instead of just the load
combinations selected specifically for strength design.

Design – Slab
Incidents Resolved
* Ticket Description
* 7484 An incident was resolved where there was an inconsistency in the sizes between the analysis
mesh and the area object created automatically to model the rigid area on top of a circular
column. This resulted in the strip forces not being reported at the face of the rigid area. This
issue only affected circular columns and general meshing when the option to automatically
include a rigid area on top of the column was selected. It also only affected SAFE v20.0.0.
Any models with these conditions satisfied should be rerun and results verified.

Detailing
Incidents Resolved
* Ticket Description
7524 An incident was resolved for Slab/Mat/Footing Detailing Editor where Bar Length "End
Offset" was not enforced correctly and always switched back to the value used for specifying
"Bar Extension into Slab" in Bar Selection and Curtailment Rule form.
7533 An incident was resolved where the option "Provide bars above typical" was not copied
along with the rebar when the operation to copy rebar between compatible beams
performed.

Drafting and Editing

Incidents Resolved
* Ticket Description
7483 An incident was resolved where the slab rebar object would become unavailable in the GUI
when its width or any other parameter was edited in plan view through the right-click form.
7528 An incident was resolved where the assignment of a rib location to a ribbed or waffle slab
would not show the ribs in the correct location. This was a display issue only and no analysis
or design results were affected.
7594 An incident was resolved where trying to draw a wall in plan would not work if the wall was
to be drawn only above the slab.
7801 An incident was resolved where quick drawing an area object around a point would trim the
area if it was in or on the edge of another area object.
8041 An incident was resolved where, when drawing columns in a 3D view, the column was
assigned default properties instead of what was specified on the dialog box. This issue only
affected the recently released SAFE V20.0.0.

External Import and Export

Incidents Resolved
* Ticket Description
7866 An incident was resolved where attempts to import a DXF file as a floor plan into a model
that had been originally created in SAFE 2016 or earlier, and in which there was no story
above the datum, caused an abnormal termination of SAFE. The issue affected SAFE v20.0.0
only when working with older models. SAFE models created in v20.0.0 with the New Model
command were not affected.

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Graphics
Incidents Resolved
* Ticket Description
1061 An incident was resolved where the extruded shape plotted for inverted T-Beams with
vertical offsets specified was incorrect. This was a display issue only and results were not
affected.
7748 An incident was resolved where extruded display of slabs did not account for the cardinal
point offset. This was a display issue only and no results were affected. This issue only
affected SAFE v20.0.0.

Loading
Incidents Resolved
* Ticket Description
* 7627 An incident was resolved where the self weight of waffle and ribbed slabs may have been
under-calculated. The weight modifier as the ratio of waffle or ribbed slab versus solid slab
was applied twice. This was an inadvertent change that only affects recently released SAFE
v20.0.0. Waffle and ribbed slabs run in SAFE V20.0.0 should be rerun on this newer version
and their design verified.
* 7670 An incident was resolved where nonuniform area loads were not translating correctly from
SAFE v16 or earlier models to SAFE v20.0.0 models. This has been corrected. Also when
already translated files are reopened in the new SAFE v20.1.0 the loads will be restored.
Older SAFE models with nonuniform area loads that were opened and run in v20.0.0 should
be re-run in v20.1.0.
* 8108 An incident was resolved where line loads specified through null lines and spanning several
area elements were not getting transferred correctly to the area elements and a warning
message was given by the program. This affected SAFE v20.0.0 only.

Results Display and Output

Incidents Resolved
* Ticket Description
7749 An incident was resolved where user-defined rebar was not being considered when strip
design rebar was displayed and the option to only show rebar required above the user-
defined rebar was requested. This issue only affected the display of strip-design rebar. The
display of FEM-design rebar was not affected. This issue only affected SAFE v20.0.0. This was
a display issue only, and design was not affected.
7807 An incident was resolved where, in very rare cases, displaying slab-strip results on screen
would cause an abnormal termination. No results were affected.
7832 An incident was resolved where slabs designated as "Stiff" or "Mat" or "Footing" in their slab
section properties were not being written to the table "Area Section Property Definitions -
Summary" and to the Project Report, which caused an incorrect slab thickness to be
reported in the project report. This was just a reporting error, and analysis and design
results were not affected.
7834 An incident was resolved where punching shear details were not showing the unique point
label as shown in the graphical display. This was just a reporting omission and design results
were not affected.
7913 An incident was resolved where the display of the punching-shear ratio was unnecessarily
showing "N/C" (Not Calculated) at column bases where no slab was present.
7997 An incident was resolved where the location shown for a snap point in plan view was
incorrect if the graphics mode was DirectX and the display was in a grid system that was
translated or rotated with respect to the global coordinate system. This could affect the
values shown when moving the mouse over a display of results. This issue only affected the
recently released SAFE v20.0.0.

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Structural Model
Incidents Resolved
* Ticket Description
7488 An incident was resolved where models brought into SAFE v20.0.0 from earlier versions of
SAFE would have their wall insertion points changed from the middle to the face. These
models should be checked and corrected, or be re-imported into the new version.
7697 An incident was resolved where the option to automatically generate drop panels and stiff
areas over column capitals when specified through column properties was not working. This
issue only affected the recently released SAFE v20.0.0. Older versions did not have the
problem.
7835 An incident was resolved where the option to automatically add a rigid diaphragm constraint
to the tops of the columns and walls above the slab was not working. This issue only
affected the recently released SAFE v20.0.0. Older versions did not have the problem.

User Interface
Incidents Resolved
* Ticket Description
7478 An incident was resolved where the analysis and design results would become unavailable if
the tendon plan layout data was viewed from within the tendon vertical layout form after
the analysis was run.
7595 An incident was resolved where the option to add a story above the slab datum was not
working.
7656 An incident was resolved where, in rare cases, right-clicking on a tendon object to get more
details on its definition would cause an abnormal termination. No results were affected.
8010 An incident was resolved where slab areas not in view would also get selected when a
Window selection was done on an elevation view. This issue only affected recently released
SAFE v20.0.0.

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