Application Interface - RISAConnection

Here we will give you a quick outline of the interface. See the RISA-Tekla Link Connection Procedure and RISAConnection Behavior topics for more information.

Tekla Structures Interface

After the link is installed, RISAConnection buttons will appear in the Tekla Structures interface as follows.

Tekla Structures 2021

The RISA - Assign Connections selection is used to determine which connections you wish to transfer to RISAConnection. By default all connections are exported.

The main function of this dialog is to determine which connections you want to send to RISAConnection for design. You may wish for some connections not to export to RISAConnection if they've already been designed, or if you know that RISAConnection does not yet have the capability to design that type of connection. The connections with checkboxes checked define the connections that will be designed with RISAConnection and the program defaults to include all connections. From there you can click to uncheck a given connection, or use the buttons to the right. The functions are as follows:

• Clicking the Conn Parameter button to get information about the connection (name, ID, welding/bolting designations, etc). From this dialog the "Connection Name" can be updated. This value is what is used as the designation in RISAConnection. By default the CONNECTION_RUNNING_NUMBER is populated, but this can be modified to something more meaningful to the engineer if required.

• Export All/Ignore All buttons will either check all connections or uncheck all connections. If you only wish to transfer a select few connections then you may start with Ignore All then select the individual connections you wish to transfer.
• The Export/Ignore Selectedbuttons allow you to make a graphical selection of the model in Tekla Structures prior to entering this dialog. When you enter this dialog with a graphical selection these buttons will check/uncheck the appropriate connections based on that selection.
• The Show/Ignore Exported buttons will select the exported/ignored connections in the Tekla Structures model view.

The RISA - Design Connections selection is used to send the Tekla Structures model to RISAConnection for connection design. From RISAConnection the connections can have their pieces and parts updated to create a connection that passes all code checks/limit states. Pressing the Export to Tekla button from RISAConnection will update the Tekla Structures model with any changes from RISAConnection. See the RISA-Tekla Link Integration Procedure for step-by-step information.

The RISA - Roundtrip Design Connections selection will do a full round trip between Tekla Structures and RISAConnection. This means that the model will be sent to RISAConnection, any applicable connections will be checked/solved in RISAConnection, and the model will then be exported back to Tekla Structures. Be very careful using this tool, as many changes can potentially happen to the Tekla Structures model that may not have been directly specified by the user. RISAConnection has limitations and these are imposed on the Tekla Structures connections as well, which can cause automatic updates to the connection.

The RISA - Show Results selection will open up the RISA-Tekla Link dialog showing the design results and any errors/warnings.

Note:

• Note that this button will only show results if the model has been previously sent to RISAConnection.
• If you do not see the link pop up, click the button on the taskbar.

RISA Tekla Link Browser

This RISA-Tekla link results browser gives an overall summary of the project, as well as allows you to view each individual connection. For each individual connection there are two tabs: Connection design and Errors/Warnings.

The Connection design tab will show each limit state and the corresponding Pass/Fail.

The Errors/Warnings tab will show warnings for any connection components that were not transferred, or give an error if the connection was not able to be transferred at all.

Note:

• There are many things that do not translate between RISAConnection and Tekla Structures. This in turn can cause either the connection to not go to RISAConnection, or some properties of the connection may not go to RISAConnection. For a list of these see the Warning-Error Log topic.

Graphical Results View

After the results are brought back into Tekla Structures the graphic view shows the connections by their color-coded results, green indicating a passing connection and red a failing connection.

Note:

• This graphical results view is not available for all environments for all supported connections. This feature is also used in Tekla Structures, so there is conflicting functionality in certain cases.

Folder Structure

When the model is transferred to RISAConnection there are two files created in the directory of the Tekla file.

There is a ".exc" file and a ".rcn" file. The ".exc" file works as the exchange file between Tekla Structures and RISAConnection. The ".rcn" file is the RISAConnection input file. This prevents any information confusion in the link.

Registry and File Location Considerations

The RISA-Tekla Link relies on many different files to work properly. Information from Tekla Structures, RISAConnection and the RISA-Tekla Link itself is found by looking to either the registry directly, or to an INI file. Here is where we look for different items.

Note:

• The default location for each of these files will be in the default C:\RISA or C:\RISA\RISA Tekla Link folders. Only a catastrophic installation problem or manual editing of files and registry locations should break this functionality.

RISAConnection.exe

With the link we directly open RISAConnection. To do this we look for this RISAConnection.exe file from this location in the registry:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE - SOFTWARE - Microsoft - Windows - App Paths - RISAConnection.exe

If the RISAConnection.exe is not located in this path then the link will not work properly.

TeklaLink.exe

Both running the RISA-Tekla Link in Tekla Structures AND sending information from RISAConnection back requires finding the TeklaLink.exe. We look in this location in the registry:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE - SOFTWARE - Microsoft - Windows - App Paths - TeklaLink.exe

RISAConnection.ini

The RISAConnection.ini file gives the location where RISA's shape databases are located. The RISA-Tekla Link uses these shape databases to map Tekla Structures shape names to RISA shape names. Thus, the link needs to know where this file is located. It will look for the RISAConnection.ini from this location in the registry:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER - Software - RISA Technologies - RISAConnection - Version # - INI Path

TeklaLinkInfo.ini

The TeklaLinkInfo.ini gives the location where the RISA-Tekla Link mapping files are located. These mapping files are used to map the Tekla Structures shape names to the RISA shape names. It will look for the RISAConnection.ini from this location in the registry:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER - Software - RISA Technologies - RISATeklaLink - Version # - INI Path