Well, the summer holidays are over and it's back to work in this season of mists and mellow fruitfulness (unless you are south of the equator and looking forward to spring of course).

We have a lot of new developments to report on, with the biggest items being the new version of the best selling Mail Manager, plus a brand new GSA module for Footfall analysis.

But what about the recent releases? Well, for the movers and the shakers, we have the release of the dynamic duo: Siren and Sigraph, plus Pile and the latest ADC and AdSec updates.

Mail Manager Goes Fourth

We have just completed the new and improved Version 4 of Mail Manager. Version 4 is a completely rewritten, more streamlined and refined version of the popular tool for enabling people to file, find and share emails from within Outlook. Testing of features is nearing completion and roll-out to existing customers will be starting shortly.

The key development in Version 4.0 is in the filing of emails with a new artificial intelligence engine that learns as you file, significantly speeding up the filing process by suggesting folders to place the email in. Other enhancements include:

• Improved user interface
• New filtering features for quicker filing
• Faster searching including preview pane

Email us at oasys@arup.com if you want to preview the new features on the Mail Manager web seminar.

GSA for the movers and shakers

GSA 8.2 is now at Alpha stage and features a number of exciting developments.

As you may have seen in the CAD press recently, we will be releasing a link between GSA and Autodesk's Revit, which will be part of GSA 8.2. This two-way link will enable you to model in Revit, analyse and design in GSA and update the Revit model with your results. As the link will be part of the base program, it will be free to all our maintained customers.

Footfall response analysis is an increasingly hot topic in the construction industry, especially for clients with sensitive vibration requirements such as hospitals, laboratories and airports, but the only way to calculate it has been to compare your real floor plate to a limited selection of standard examples. Now, for the first time, you will be able to calculate the footfall response of any floor configuration and any material. The analysis is based on first principles derived from years of research in Arup and has received the full support of the Concrete Council. Only GSA Footfall enables you to do this analysis.

If you want to hear more about Footfall-induced vibrations, the Concrete Centre is hosting a free evening presentation on September 28th and a half day course on November 7th.

While we are on the subject, GSA 8.2 will also include harmonic analysis and non-linear spring elements. Exciting stuff indeed!

State of the Art

What do you do when you are asked to make 23 tonnes of sculpture automatically travel back and forth over a bridge? Turn to GSA of course! See how Peter Bowtell of Arup Melbourne and the team of artist, architect and fabricator solved this problem with such aplomb with this case study and Peter's presentation at the User Group Forum.

Static analysis? I don't think so!

Concrete results

The latest version of ADC is now available, with more design codes and, due to popular demand, a dockable gateway. Download it and see for yourself just how simple it is to design concrete columns and multi-span beams: it's as easy as ADC!

For advanced concrete analysis, the forthcoming AdSec release boasts calculations to ACI 318, ACI 318M and parts of AS3600.

Are you driven to analyse piles?

After an exhaustive beta testing stage, Drive, the new addition to our geotechnical software range is now ready to help you find out just what it takes to drive a pile into the ground (apart from a big hammer of course).

Not only that but Pile, which calculates vertical pile load capacities in layered soil deposits, is now at beta testing stage and due for release shortly. Covering cohesive and frictional soils, shaft and end bearing, under-reams plus all pile shapes and sizes, there is something for all pile designers.

Who said that piles were a pain? Not any longer.

Seismic Soil Shake-up

Are you over-designing your structures for seismic loads, or even worse, under-designing them? The bedrock may be shaking but how much movement actually makes it through the overlying soil to the foundations? Siren and Sigraph have the answers.

Siren is, in principle at least, very simple: put a stack of soil strata on top of bedrock, shake the bedrock in an earthquake, and see what motion reaches the surface. After all, if you designed your bridges or buildings for the earthquake as experienced by the rock, they may be over-designed and costly, or under-designed and dangerous. It is best to design the structures for the dynamics as damped by the dirt, but calculating the site response to a seismic event (ie what vibrations actually reach the surface through the soil) has been too hard to calculate, until now...

And that is not all. You can also use Siren to predict liquefaction.

Once you have the results from Siren, how best to interpret them? This is where Sigraph comes in. Sigraph is a program for manipulation and display of time history data with a particular emphasis on seismic data that links in with Siren to give you maximum understanding of what is going on. You can also use Sigraph to manipulate the time histories of recorded tremors to create you own earthquakes.

See more information on Siren, Sigraph, plus a look at how Siren was used on Hong Kong's Stonecutters Bridge and more.

User Group Forum report

Back in May, a number of us gathered in the bowels of Boston House with a select group of key Oasys users from around the country, plus virtual visitors from across the world, to share their experiences and get a preview of what was developing.

This year, for the first time, we had one day dedicated to engineering and one to document management, with show-and-tell from users, overviews from developers and discussion sessions on where Oasys is and should be going. Document Management may have the reputation for being boring, but I can assure you that this was not born out by the lively debates from the floor.

The presentations covered a wide, nay, global spectrum, ranging from Lloyds TSB's mastering of Columbus to a salutary lesson from Hong Kong as to why only geotechnical engineers should design geotechnical structures.

For those who missed the day, and for those who wish to remember it, you can see all the presentations here.

Oasys Limited, founded in 1976, is the software house of Arup, a global organization of consulting engineers, planners and project managers working in all areas of the built environment, infrastructure, transportation, water, vehicle engineering etc.

Oasys Limited
Central Square
Forth Street
Newcastle-Upon-Tyne
NE1 3PL

Email: oasys@arup.com
Phone: +44 (0) 191 238 7559
Fax: +44 (0) 191 238 7555
Web: http://www.oasys-software.com/

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