Hi,
please add the ability to add partial moment releases in the physical modeller. This seems like an important feature to me because if you have instability warnings it is often the case you need to provide a partial moment release to get rid of them. However, the only way to do this currently is to drop the physical model and build your model in the analytical modeller. However, a big part of STAAD nowadays is the ability to model your structure in 3D in the physical modeller. Having to go back to the old way of modelling in the analytical modeller to get rid of some warnings is not good as it significantly increases the time it takes to model your structure.
Shear connections have a small moment capacity. Having the ability to model partial moment releases would capture this ability (as it also states on your own website: https://communities.bentley.com/products/ram-staad/w/structural_analysis_and_design__wiki/58005/partial-moment-releases). As it also states on your website “partial moment releases are used when instabilities are caused due to application of full moment releases.”. This is not currently possible in the physical modeller. In addition, the basic ability to control how much of the moment you want to release in your own structure has been around in STAAD for 20 years (the earliest mention of it I can find is 2002), so I really think and strongly encourage you to add this to the physical modeller so that the engineer has full control over their own structure (and to bring the physical modeller up to date with an at least 20 year old feature from the analytical modeller).
It is also recommended on numerous posts on the STAAD forum to apply partial moment releases to fix instabilities were the engine does not apply weak springs and to add some lateral stability. Regarding your last sentence, partial moment releases are much better than springs as they will more accurately capture the behaviour of a shear connection and allow the engineer to have full control over the connections between members. Providing a partial moment release of, say, 1% is much better than trying to estimate how much of a spring value to apply. I strongly believe that the engineer should have the ability to control whether the connections between members are fully fixed, pinned or semi-rigid and this should be available in the physical modeller, as it is in the analytical. A partial moment release is not the same as a spring.
Example posts on staad forum recommending partial releases: https://communities.bentley.com/products/ram-staad/f/ram-staad-forum/214828/diagonal-decay-warning
https://communities.bentley.com/products/ram-staad/f/ram-staad-forum/226621/staad-partial-moment-release
Thank you for posting this idea. However, the proposal appears to be a method to address issues to provide restraints in instable models. The analysis engine already catches locations in the model which have instabilities and adds weak springs. However, if the model also assigns any significant loading in those released DOFs, then this will result in significant displacements. Perhaps you might want to attach a sample model that illustrates when a partial moment release would be better than providing say a spring release on a member end.