ETABS v19.0.

1 Release Notes
© 2020 Computers and Structures, Inc.

Notice Date: 11-December-2020

This document lists changes made to ETABS since v19.0.0, released 28-October-2020. Items marked
with an asterisk (*) in the first column are more significant.

Analysis
Enhancements Implemented
* Ticket Description
5554 An enhancement has been made to speed-up the recovery of the "Element Nonlinear
Energy By Group" and step-by-step "Base Reactions" response tables for load cases with a
large number of output steps.
* 5656 An enhancement has been made to speed-up stiffness solution by parallelizing global
stiffness assembly phase when using the Advanced or Multi-threaded Solver options. This
should increase the speed of nonlinear static, nonlinear multi-step static, and nonlinear
direct-integration time-history load cases for medium-sized models, especially when using
Newton-Raphson iteration and/or event-to-event stepping.
5780 Analysis results can now be recovered in certain uncommon cases where an unexpected
termination of the graphical user interface occurs before the analysis results can be saved
with the model. This can occur, for example, due to a power failure or a scheduled reboot
following a Windows update during long-running analyses, or an inability to refresh the
graphical user interface when reconnecting to remote desktop. For the recovery to be
possible, the analysis must be run out-of-process (the default), and either (a) the entire run
must finish when load cases are run in series (the default), or (b) some of the load cases
must finish when load cases are run in parallel. In the latter case, only the load cases that
have finished can be recovered. If recovery is possible, a message will be presented to the
user next time the model is opened with the option to access the results or discard them. If
the results are accessed, the user should review them carefully for validity, and then save
the model to keep the results or unlock the model to delete them. Note that certain load
cases should be re-run in any case, such as those applying code-based wind or seismic load
patterns that depend on modal period, and response-spectrum load cases with accidental
torsion or that apply equivalent static loads. If design is to be performed, it is recommended
to run or re-run one or more linear load cases to trigger certain automatic calculations
needed for design, such as for live-load reduction factors. The main purpose of this
enhancement is to preserve the results of long-running nonlinear load cases and their
preceding load cases.

Design – Composite Beam

Enhancements Implemented
* Ticket Description
5634 An enhancement was made to composite beam design. The controlling load combinations
are now included in the Constructability and Serviceability section of the detailed output.

Documentation
Enhancements Implemented
* Ticket Description
5381 The "ETABS Introductory Tutorial" manual has been updated to reflect the latest features
and graphical user interface.
5645 The "Welcome to ETABS" manual has been updated to reflect the latest features and
graphical user interface.

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Installation and Licensing
Enhancements Implemented
* Ticket Description
4933 The version number has been changed to 19.0.1 for a new minor release.

Loading
Enhancements Implemented
* Ticket Description
* 5175 An enhancement was made for the NBCC 2015 auto wind load where the Exposure Factor
(Ce) is now available for the Dynamic procedure for Open and Rough Terrain.

Results Display and Output

Enhancements Implemented
* Ticket Description
3856 An enhancement was added in the project report which now includes the calculation for
NBCC 2015 auto wind loads.

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Analysis
Incidents Resolved
* Ticket Description
* 5422 An incident was resolved where very sudden strength loss in single degree-of-freedom
nonlinear hinges, nonlinear materials used in fiber hinges, or multi-linear plastic links could
result in a stress value that is below the residual stress specified on the backbone curve.
This issue could occur in nonlinear static, nonlinear staged construction, nonlinear direct-
integration time-history, and nonlinear modal time-history (FNA) load cases. The affected
hysteresis types were kinematic, isotropic, degrading, or BRB-hardening. Other types of
hysteresis, as well as the Interacting and Parametric P-M2-M3 hinges, were not affected.
This issue would be most noticeable for a backbone curve with significant loss of strength
and when the strength-loss branch of the backbone curve was traversed quickly in only a
few analysis steps. Additionally, the behavior of the kinematic, isotropic, degrading, and
BRB-hardening hysteresis types, when reloading from the strength-loss branch of the
backbone curve, were adjusted to be consistent with the other hysteresis types and the
Interacting and Parametric P-M2-M3 hinges. Models which experience strength loss in
single degree-of-freedom nonlinear hinges, nonlinear materials used in fiber hinges, or
multi-linear plastic type links for the affected hysteresis types may now produce somewhat
different results due to this change. In particular, the new results will tend to dissipate
more energy following strength loss. Most models will not be affected.
* 5644 An incident was resolved where material creep behavior modeled by full-integration could
cause a time-dependent staged-construction load case to terminate unexpectedly when the
creep data became very large (more than 2GB), after which results were not available. This
could occur in larger models after many steps, since the creep-history data grows with
every stress increment when using full integration. This problem was not common. Using
Dirichlet series to model creep behavior maintains a constant size for the creep-history
data, and hence did not trigger this issue. The use of Dirichlet series for long-running
models can still be useful to reduce disk storage and analysis time.

Data Files
Incidents Resolved
* Ticket Description
* 5697 An incident was resolved where model files (.EDB) could not be opened on machines with
certain language configurations. When this occurred, an error message was given. This
error affected version 19.0.0 only.
5700 An incident was resolved where SidePlate property data could not be accessed on some
machines due to permission issues. When this occurred, a warning message was shown
when running the analysis.

Database Tables
Incidents Resolved
* Ticket Description
4103 An incident was resolved where the "Material Behavior" parameter in the tables "Slab
Property Definitions - Layers" and "Wall Property Definitions - Layers" was always imported
as "Directional", even if it was specified to be "Coupled" in the tables. This affected tables
imported from external files as well as tables edited in the interactive database editor. Only
slab and wall properties defined as layered were affected. Thin-shell, thick-shell,
membrane, and plate shell properties were not affected.
5567 An incident was resolved where, when using the interactive database editor to modify the
"Time History - Linear Direct Integration" or "Time History - Nonlin Direct Integration"
tables, the modal case specified for load cases that use more than one row in those
database tables may be reset to the default modal load case. When this issue occurred, the

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 * Ticket Description
change was reflected in the subsequently displayed database tables and in the load case
definition forms.
5709 An incident was resolved where, when the interactive database (Edit menu>Interactive
Database) is used to modify the Load Combination Definitions table, load combinations
with a combination type not set to "Linear Add" will be changed to have a combination type
of Envelope. When this issue occurred, the change is reflected in the Load Combination
Data form (Define menu>Load Combinations) and the Load Combination Definitions
database table once the interactive database form is closed.
5713 An incident was resolved where the table for nonlinear staged construction load case
definitions could be missing some data if multiple nonlinear staged construction load cases
were defined.

Design – Composite Beam

Incidents Resolved
* Ticket Description
5632 An incident was resolved which affected composite beam design per all codes except AISC
360-16. When the composite beam design code was set to AISC 360-16 and the Consider
Axial Force option was set to True in the Composite Beam Design Preferences or in any of
the beam Composite Beam Design Overwrites, and then the design code was subsequently
changed to a code other than AISC 360-16, any axial force present in composite beams was
still being taken into account during design and its effect significantly overestimated. When
the beam section was an Auto-Select section, this could produce designs that were over-
conservative. When the beam section was a regular steel section, this could produce design
warnings in the Interactive Composite Design form and in the output. This affected ETABS
Versions 18.0.0 through 19.0.0. No unconservative designs were produced.
5636 An incident was resolved which affected composite beam design. When the load
combinations selected for composite beam deflection included load cases that themselves
included notional load patterns, the dead load deflection and total deflection of the beam
were underestimated. This affected all versions of ETABS that design composite beams.
When this occurred, the strength of the composite beams designed by ETABS was not
affected and the error was obvious in the output. Prior to designing composite beams,
ETABS now checks that the load combinations selected for composite beam deflection do
not include load cases that themselves included notional load patterns. Also attempts to
include such load combinations in the list of load combinations selected for deflection
check in the Design Load Combos Selection form now cause an error message to be
displayed.
5717 An incident was resolved which affected composite beam design per the Eurocode. When
computing the plastic moment capacity of beams, ETABS assumed the steel was stressed to
its yield strength, fy, instead of assuming it was stressed to its design yield strength fyd.
These two strengths differ when the Eurocode factor gammaM0 has been set in the
composite beam design preferences to a value other than its default value of 1.0. When this
happened, the plastic moment capacity was somewhat overestimated by ETABS. This
affected all versions of ETABS capable of designing composite beams per the Eurocode,
versions 13.0.0 to 19.0.0.
5718 An incident was resolved which affected the design of composite beams with user-specified
shear-stud distributions. The shear strength of such beams was checked by ETABS without
making allowance for any coping at the ends of the beam. Also, the factored shear force in
the output and the shear demand/capacity ratios displayed on screen and listed in the
output were based on the construction strengths only. This affected ETABS versions 16.2.0
to 19.0.0. Composite beams with default shear-stud distributions were not affected.

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Documentation
Incidents Resolved
* Ticket Description
5703 A change was made in the Composite Beam Design Manual Eurocode 4-2004. The Manual
previously gave a wrong value of the concrete modulus of elasticity, Ec, used to check beam
vibrations. The Manual now gives the proper value of Ec. The program used the correct
value and the results are unaffected.

External Import and Export

Incidents Resolved
* Ticket Description
5529 An incident was resolved which affected the import of curved walls with openings at their
base from .EXR files produced by CSiXRevit. These walls were imported with an incorrect
geometry. When this occurred, the error was visually obvious, and the results agreed with
the model as imported. This issue only affected ETABS v19.0.0, as these walls were not
imported in ETABS v18 and earlier.
5671 An incident was resolved where ETABS story levels were not exported from ETABS to .EXR
files. This affected ETABS v19.0.0 only. When the .EXR files exported from ETABS were
imported into Revit projects which did not already contain story levels matching the ETABS
levels, the error was visually obvious.

Installation and Licensing

Incidents Resolved
* Ticket Description
* 5612 An incident was resolved where an abnormal termination error would occur when closing
ETABS on some machines. This did not affect models or any results.

Results Display and Output

Incidents Resolved
* Ticket Description
5596 An incident was resolved where the energy output of linear link elements with non-zero
damping coefficient could have been reported incorrectly. This occurred in nonlinear direct-
integration time-history load cases using the event-to-event solution scheme for time steps
that had intermediate event steps. This error only affected the reported nonlinear viscous
energy, and it caused a corresponding energy error to be reported. No other results were
affected.

Structural Model
Incidents Resolved
* Ticket Description
* 5572 An incident was resolved for cracked slab analysis where the modulus of rupture for
concrete that was being used in the analysis was only correct for ACI codes and for models
in lb-inch units. The modulus of rupture for other design codes or for any user-specified
value was being overwritten by the ACI values in lb-inch units. The error only affected the
recently released ETABS v19.0.0. Models with cracked slab analysis requested in that
version should be re-run.

User Interface
Incidents Resolved
* Ticket Description
* 5484 An incident was resolved where opening the form to modify the angles in a P-M3 hinge
sometimes caused an abnormal termination.

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* Ticket Description
5681 An incident was resolved where an error message could occur when opening the PMM
interaction surface form for a hinge. Results were not affected.

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