ram advanse

huangyhg

ram advanse
what are thoughts on ram advanse?  
we are a small structural firm - 5 engineers, looking to obtain a 3d analysis program.  reinforced concrete design also a plus.  we already have ram structural system, frame, steel & foundation.  ram concrete is 3x as expensive, and it seems like ram advanse can do most of the same work.
thanks.
in my opinion, ram advance is more like risa 3d or other 3d-fem softwares. if you have ram structural system and want to perform concrete design (pan joist system, etc) you are better off with ram concrete. it does not allow modelling of one way slabs, for that you may need ram concept or just model slabs as wide beams. it may not allow two way slabs and you may need ram concept (ram concept also helps with mat footing or post-tensioned or prestressed slab/beam designs). ram advance is fairly different in capabilities from ram concrete. in my opinion, you may be able to do the same things within ram advance but may require quite a bit of modelling time and effort (say you want to generate a pan joist system in ram advance for example also wind loads etc will need to be specifically applied by you in advance unless you can export these from ram structrual building model again you will need concrete modelling capabilities within ram structural to automatically generate wind and seismic loads). however, if you are looking for a general purpose 3d program that helps with day to day cals than ram advance is a good choice. i believe it can design masonry shear walls, wood shear walls, metal studs etc as well.  
i use ram structural system and ram advanse.  i like advanse.  i think you can also export files from ram frame to advanse.
ram advanse is the most user-friendly finite element program i have used.  it comes with a lot of handy modules.