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SAM is a fully integrated software product used for the design of bridges.
This bridge design software is unique because it integrates code checking with analysis.
It uses graphical tools to define all the structural elements such as beams and sections.
These need only be defined once, and section properties need
never be calculated at all. Because it is fully integrated, loading
effects are easily transferred from the analysis modules to the
code-checking modules which handle AASHTO LRFD. Index to this page
Back Features Overview Sections and Beams 
Analysis Distribution Methods 
Refined Methods 
Unique Integration of Code Checking and Analysis
Back Global Benefits of SAM What Does SAM do for you as a Bridge Designer? SAM helps you to save money, save time, win more work and increase profits. In short, it helps make you more competitive.
SAM enables you to use Refined Methods of Analysis with the ease and simplicity.
What does SAM do for you as a Bridge Owner, a Highway Authority or a Design-and-Build Contractor?
Back How SAM Works SAM has two major functions, which may be integrated or stand-alone. Firstly, SAM lets you easily build a model of a bridge, optimize load positions, analyze for moments, shears, axial loads and torsions, and output results in combinations and envelopes. Secondly, SAM takes the code-checking chore from your job. It does code checks for:
By integrating both functions, SAM is unique in being one program that can completely lay out and code check a bridge. The data used for one part of the program is used throughout the rest of the program. This allows you to concentrate on achieving good engineering results faster and better than you can with any other commercially available product. You can use SAM either as a pure analysis program, or as a pure design and rating program, or as both together. SAM is unique in bringing together these functions for bridge beams. Using powerful graphics tools you draw beams and sections with reinforcement and prestressed tendons. Then, for distribution methods, you set up the spans, associate beams and sections with the spans, and ask SAM to calculate the worst loading envelope, as well as being able to locate any load at any point. For refined methods you need to enter more data, so you lay out a bridge deck using design lines, roadways, construction lines, span-end lines and a powerful meshing technique. Then you define the sub-structure as a series of planar sub-models attached to the deck and/or each other. Then you calculate influence surfaces for various load effects, and as a consequence automatically place loads at optimum positions. SAM will do the analysis for all your load cases, and then allow you to create loading combinations and envelopes. Either way you work the results are transferred directly to your beams for code checking. Alternatively, you enter the results of structural analysis by hand, which means that if you wish you can continue to use distribution techniques for deriving this data. SAM then checks the beam at Strength Limit State and Service Limit State according to AASHTO LRFD. You quickly change section or beam details, and reinforcement or tendon layouts until the code requirements are met. If you had to change significantly the sizes of the structural members, you can now loop back into the definition of the bridge and perform a complete new analysis with hardly any effort at all. It has to be seen to be appreciated! When you are completely satisfied with your results, you can print the mimics of the hand calculation sheets, giving you a full record of the design.
Back Program Outlines Please click on a Ref. No. in order to see much more detail of a particular module.
Back User Testimonies The following comments have all been given to us by our users. We have not supplied their names, because we promised to keep their anonymity. "I've had a relatively easy time learning how to use your software. Your tutorial and help manuals are excellent! I especially like how you show all of your calculations in the printouts." "A tremendous time saver. I wish we had known about SAM sooner." "This software has paid for itself quite quickly in saved engineer time." "We have been using SAM for some time now and we are very pleased with it. It is certainly far more flexible and comprehensive than any program we have used hitherto, but the ease of data input means that the most complicated section can be analyzed quickly. This has led to considerable savings in design time and we can offer a more efficient and economical service as a consequence." "... it is good." "An invaluable aid ... " "The program is receiving an increasing amount of use in the office and rapidly gaining in popularity!" "We are very pleased with the quality and promptness of the support service we have received." "... we are grateful for your prompt response to our request [for a special new feature in SAM]." "I must say that the more I use the analysis package – the more I appreciate how powerful it really is" "Using SAM, we were able to prove that a bridge that had failed a previous rating was, in fact, adequate. The original consultant was recommended SAM by the client!" "SAM paid for itself the first time we used it! "The consultant checking our work used simplifications that gave capacities 20% down on SAM's analysis. We suggested that they buy SAM!" "It's a great program" "We liked the responses we got to our questions, and were pleased by the promptness with which they were dealt. We were also impressed by the speed at which we could obtain program modifications. We are very happy with your support, and with SAM" "I am very impressed with the support your company gives for this software." "Your support is fantastic, you always respond quickly, and I like that. We are working to tight deadlines, and we need fast turn-around support." in connection with SAM's printouts of mimics of hand calculations ... "This is great ... I have worked with other programs that are black boxes, and you put data in and you have no idea what is happening ... this is really great!".
Back Reasons to Change You may already have some software for design and analysis, and so you are bound to ask the question "Why change from my current methods to SAM?". Here are some answers .. SAM Is Fast and Easy. SAM has been specifically designed so that your time in front of the computer is an absolute minimum: even when you need to design a rectangular section with a single layer of reinforcement you save significant time! You can work through several iterations of a design very rapidly. You come to SAM with a problem, and walk away a short time later with a solution. You save time and money. SAM Is Integrated. You may already have a program for sectional properties, one to optimize load positions, one for line beam analysis and distribution factor calculation, another for temperature gradient calculations, and still more for piers, steel beams, precast beams and reinforced concrete beams. SAM does it all in one program, and all SAM's modules have the same "look-and-feel", which makes them easy and consistent for you to use. This means that you need enter data only once, and this makes the whole process so much more quick. SAM Can Be Checked. SAM mimics the final hand calculations wherever possible, so that you can check its calculations. This means that you can trust the design, because it substitutes a "black-box" solution with transparent, complete and accurate calculations. In fact, SAM's output is so good that you can use it as an educational tool! SAM Is Supported. For the small cost of the Software Maintenance, SAM is kept up-to-date for you by a commercial company that has a vested interest in ensuring that you are a satisfied customer. SAM Is Documented And Usable. SAM is easy to use, both intuitively and technically, both because it was designed and developed by bridge engineers, and because its manuals and on-line help are so good. Back User Conferences SAM user conferences are held annually. These enable users to share expertise and discuss product enhancement. The user conferences, organized by the users, provides Bestech Systems with significant feedback for establishing future product development plans. This way, the product evolves in keeping with the practical requirements of bridge engineers. Back Contact us for bridge design and analysis software
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