The Earthquake Engineering Online Archive - (Nisee e-library)

SAP-IV: Static and Dynamic Response of Linear System

Bathe, Klaus-Jürgen; Wilson, Edward L.; Peterson, Fred E.

Department of Civil Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, Modified: B.F. Maison, Structural Engineer, El Cerrito, California 1992., 1973,

SAP IV is a finite element structural analysis program for the static and dynamic response of linear three-dimensional systems. The program is written to analyze structures which are idealized by combinations of structural element types. The capacity of the problem depends mainly on the number of finite element nodal points in the system. There is practically no restriction on the number of elements, the number of load cases and the number or bandwidth of the equations to be solved. In a dynamic analysis the options are: (1) frequency calculations, (2) frequency calculations followed by response history analysis, (3) frequency calculations followed by response spectrum analysis and (4) response history analysis using step-by-step direct integration. Despite large system capacity, no loss in efficiency is encountered in solving smaller problems. The report describes the logical construction of the program, the dynamic high speed storage allocation, the analysis capabilities, the finite element library and the numerical techniques used. The following element types are available: Three-dimensional truss, Three- dimensional beam, Plane stress and plane strain quadrilateral, Two- dimensional axisymmetric solid, Three-dimensional solid (8 node brick), Plate and shell quadrilateral, Boundary element, Three-dimensional straight or curved pipe element, Variable number of nodes thick shell and 3-D element. Richard Hunter of Florida lead a conversion of SAP IV from PC FORTRAN to C++ and developed a Graphic User Interface (GUI) for input for the Florida Department of Transportation and posted the results to an ftp site here.

Available online: http://nisee.berkeley.edu/documents/SWSC/SAP4.zip (1 MB)