11-28-2010, 08:50 PM
SAP 2000 is not any different from ETABS. Rather to me, ETABS is even more organized than SAP 2000. Be it SAP 2000, ETABS or any other software, any one of them can do the analysis and design comfortably. The analysis/design of box culvert is not anything difficult. It could as well be hand analyzed and designed (i.e. manually). You can analyze the vertical walls and the top (cover) as a frame-a simple one-bay frame for that matter. The floor could be analyzed and designed as a floor supporting moving loads or as a raft footing supporting uniformly distributed static loading as the loadings are static loads both on the vertical and the horizontal members. The dynamic effect of the passage of moving objects such as vehicles or planes or whatever it may be, could be taken care of by amplifying the static loadings coming from the supported objects and materials. These could be easily lifted from any text, such as the reinforced concrete designers’ manual or any other text book or from the codes’ manuals. Ones the loadings are imposed on the structure, the analysis and design are straight forward as such could be carried out with any software.
Regards
Teddy
Regards
Teddy