Results & reports

Diagrams, contours and tables in the viewport, and the calculation package you hand to a reviewer.

Results & reports 2 min read

Results come in two forms: interactive ones you use while designing, and the fixed report you hand over. Both come from the same solved model, so a report cannot disagree with what you saw on screen.

In this section

01Exporting a reportAssembling a calculation package a reviewer can follow — inputs, model, results and checks, in the order a calc package should be.
02IFC structural modelsThe IFC structural analysis view in and out — what IFC2X3, IFC4 and IFC4X3 files bring, what an export carries, and what IFC cannot say.
03Import & export formatsIFC structural models and SAF workbooks in and out, DXF as a reference drawing, result tables as CSV or xlsx, and an OOFEM input deck.
04Reading diagramsBending, shear and axial diagrams, contour plots and deformed shapes — the conventions behind what you are looking at.
05Result tablesFiltering, sorting and extracting numbers — getting the value you need out of a solved model without scrolling.
06Reviewing a calculationFor the checking engineer — how to interrogate a model you did not build, what the report guarantees, and the questions to ask first.

What is available after a solve

Result	Beams and bars	Plates, walls and shells
Displacements	Translations and rotations at any position	Nodal translations and rotations
Internal forces	$N$ , $V_{y}$ , $V_{z}$ , $T$ , $M_{y}$ , $M_{z}$ along the member	$m_{x}$ , $m_{y}$ , $m_{x y}$ , $n_{x}$ , $n_{y}$ , $n_{x y}$ , $v_{x}$ , $v_{y}$
Stresses	Derived from section properties	$σ_{x}$ , $σ_{y}$ , $σ_{z}$ , $τ_{x y}$ , $τ_{x z}$ , $τ_{y z}$ and the equivalent stress
Strains	—	$ε_{x}$ , $ε_{y}$ , $ε_{z}$ , $γ_{x y}$ , $γ_{x z}$ , $γ_{y z}$
Reactions	Per node, per case and combination	Per node along a supported edge
Derived	Envelopes and extremes	Principal moments $m_{1}$ , $m_{2}$ and principal membrane forces $n_{1}$ , $n_{2}$
Checks	Utilisation plotted per member	—

Mode shapes from a modal analysis and buckling shapes from a stability one are read the same way, with one difference: an eigenvector is not equilibrium under a load, so it has no stress resultant and no reaction. Only the shape means anything.

The plotted-result menu listing Model geometry and, under Linear static, Deformed shape, Internal forces (1D), Internal forces (2D), Error estimate (ZZ) and Design checks — A viewport’s plotted-result menu once the steel hall is solved: the model geometry, then the deformed shape, internal forces on members and on surfaces, the Zienkiewicz–Zhu error estimate and the design checks, each opening to its quantities.

The reporting principle

A calculation package should let a competent engineer reproduce your result without access to your screen.

Inputs come before outputs: geometry, sections, materials, supports, load cases and the combination table, then the analysis results, then the checks with their clauses. A report that opens with a contour plot and never states the loading is not a calculation package.

Practical habits

Report at positions that mean something — face of support, mid-span, splice locations — not simply at mesh nodes.
Quote the combination with every number you carry into a hand calculation.
Include the envelope and the case behind it. An envelope on its own cannot be checked by anyone.
Say what the model does not include. Connections, second-order effects and construction stages, if excluded, belong in the assumptions page.

Something wrong or unclear on this page? Tell us, and it gets corrected.