advice for foundation software

huangyhg

advice for foundation software
hello all,
i am a recent graduate and have started my engineering career by designing foundations for a pre-engineered building. my company owns a very old version of pca mats as well as an old version of enercalc that has not been very helpful. the moment reactions are extremely large (1000k*ft+) as well as shearing forces that become moments when piers are necessary. i have also been given the task of finding a new software that is user friendly and technically available if questions arise. if anyone has any advice for a novice i would greately appreciate it.
check out the risa family of products.
if you "heard" it on the internet, it's guilty until proven innocent. - dcs
risafoot is not bad.  it is easy to use and is fairly inexpensive.  it is good for spread footings.  if you need to get into mats and combined footings you will have to go with something else.  they have a new risafoundation that will design mats and combined footings.  i would be interested in hearing some feedback on that program.  the only problem i have with risa is there help manuals.  they seem to be incomplete; however, they have always been great with technical support when i call or e-mail them a question.  let us know what you decide and how you like it.
for the footings for pre-eng buildings, we generally try to use hairpins for the horizontal loads- ties everything to the slab.
try foundation3d and mat3d.. these are good softwares
thanks for the feed back. i have downloaded a demo version of mat3d and like the simplistic approach. the only problem is that for this particular project my mat will be over 300ft long and the mat3d program assumes a rigid base (as per the tech support) and with this long of a mat i don't want to assume it to be rigid. the geotech is wanting to use geopiers in tension to help with uplift but can't give us a location on the placement of these until he has our designs. therefore we need to resist uplift and overturing soley with the weight of concrete. i've heard good things about risa and downloaded the demo but havent tried it out yet. anyone familiar with safe? i like the idea of the hairpins and had brought that up to my boss before but the geopiers we are going to use will give us a coeff. fric. of 1.0 and really helps alot with sliding.  
if you have to use piers the hairpins can be used so you will not have the shear turn into a moment on the footing.