Grid structures, a large category of sapce structures, are often used for large-span purpose. Rticulated shells are all of this category, which can be classified into two groups, single-layer and double-layer reticulated shells.
There aremany conveient programms for designing grid structures, such as sfcad, 3d3s, mst, they are all widly used in institute of design. All these programms can minimize you design process.
If you want to do some research, such as the stability of single-layer reticulated shells, you'll find that these programms lack of adequate capacity.Then, your best choices are versatile FEM programms, for example, MARC, ADINA, ANSYS, ABQUS, which are famous for their powerful ability of solving nonlinear problems. ANSYS, one of the most often used programm, is known to many reserchers for its robustness of solving nonlinear problems and the most useful tool-APDL,which can personalize you analysis task.As you become more adept at APDL, you will see that the applications for APDL are limited only by your imagination.
