Version 15.0

Watch the Upgrade Guide Video below to see the new features of ShapeBuilder 15.0 in action.

Elastic-Plastic Analysis

The enhanced analysis engine now accounts for material yield strength in the normal stress calculations. Previous releases performed only elastic analysis, where stresses increase linearly with applied load. The new Elastic-Plastic analysis option performs a nonlinear analysis that considers each material’s defined yield strength (when available). Once a material reaches its yield point, stresses are capped at that limit—providing more realistic results for sections subjected to high loads.

What you can analyze

• Uniaxial bending (single-axis moment)
• Biaxial bending (moments about two axes)
• Axial loads in tension or compression
• Combined axial force and moment

Analysis Details

• The Elastic-Plastic analysis uses the material yield strength defined in the material library. If a material has no defined yield, the analysis will fall back to elastic behavior for that material.
• When a region of the cross section reaches yield, stresses there are capped at the yield value; the remainder of the section will continue to respond according to its material properties.
• If all normal stress results return zero, the analysis did not converge—this often indicates that applied loads exceed the section's plastic capacity.

Plate Result Diagrams

The new Plate Result Diagram feature lets you visualize the distribution of stress (normal, St. Venant, etc.) across a section in addition to the warping function. You can create a slice through the cross section—either horizontally or vertically—and view a graph of the stress values along that slice.

Plate Result Diagram Options

• Choose the slice direction (horizontal or vertical)
• Set the coordinate location of the slice
• Adjust the resolution of the plotted graph

This tool is especially useful when performing an Elastic-Plastic analysis. The resulting plots make it easy to see which regions of the cross section have yielded and which remain elastic, providing valuable insight into the stress distribution and the overall behavior of the section.

Upgrade Guide Video

In this video, we explore the major updates in ShapeBuilder 15, including the new Elastic-Plastic Analysis feature and Plate Result Diagrams. See how these enhancements deliver more accurate, realistic stress results by accounting for material yield and visualizing stress distributions across your section.

Additional training videos can be found on the Training Videos page.