Tips & Tricks

December 29, 2025

What’s New for IBC 2024 in RISA: A Closer Look

With RISA’s latest release of RISA-3D v23.0.1, we’re continuing to expand support for IBC 2024, helping engineers stay aligned with the latest building code requirements as adoption accelerates across the U.S.—including federally funded projects. This release builds on v23.0.0 ASCE 7-22 enhancements and adds key material design updates that move RISA further into full IBC 2024 compliance. New Material Design Updates Supporting IBC 2024 The upcoming release introduces several important design code updates referenced by IBC 2024, including: Steel Seismic design per AISC 341-22 Prequalified connections per AISC 358-22 Continued support for AISC 360-22 (16th Edition) steel design Ongoing updates to the hot-rolled shape database, including compatibility with both 15th and 16th Edition steel manuals These updates support modern seismic detailing requirements and ensure consistency with current steel industry standards. Masonry Masonry design per TMS 402-22, aligning with the latest strength and serviceability provisions adopted by IBC 2024. Key updates include: Revisions to shear design equations, including clarified definitions of shear area as outlined in Table 4.4.5, improving consistency and transparency in shear capacity calculations. Updated strength reduction factors for flexure and combined flexure + axial. Unlike previous editions that used a fixed ϕ-factor of 0.9, TMS 402-22 introduces tension-controlled,…

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Masonry Retaining Walls now Available
January 18, 2017

Masonry Retaining Walls now Available

Now available in RISAFoundation v9 is the ability to design masonry retaining walls and strip footings with the latest US codes. Simply define your masonry wall and reinforcement parameters in the Wall Footing Definition Editor and then draw your wall footing.

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Viewing Coordinates in Cursor Display
December 16, 2016

Viewing Coordinates in Cursor Display

In RISA-3D, RISAFloor, and RISAFoundation the cursor now provides additional information regarding the cursor coordinates. As you move your cursor around on your screen, a box adjacent to your cursor will appear and populate with the coordinates of the cursor.

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Shear Splices between Slabs
October 20, 2016

Shear Splices between Slabs

In RISAFoundation v8, you can add a shear splice between slabs so that it acts like a hinge. This is useful for modeling the effects of shear keys or dowel joints between slabs.

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Understanding the Slab Design Cut Results
September 7, 2016

Understanding the Slab Design Cut Results

In RISAFoundation, the user has the ability to manually draw a single Design Cut anywhere on a slab. The Design Strips also automatically include Design Cuts which are used to determine the governing design forces in the Design Strip. For more detailed information on the specifics of Design Strip...

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Why Did My Reinforcing Change in ACI 318-14?
January 20, 2016

Why Did My Reinforcing Change in ACI 318-14?

The new ACI 318-14 code has been implemented into RISA-3D V14, RISAFloor V10, and RISAFoundation V8. One of the big changes between the ACI 318-11 and the ACI 318-14 was to minimum flexural reinforcement for one-way and two-way slabs, as well as foundation elements.

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