The ‘strain or deformation method’ and the ‘brute force’ method are two approaches used in the SCIA Engineer software for solving problems.
Strain or Deformation Method: This method is standard in SCIA Engineer and is used in various applications within the software. It determines the critical combinations based on the extreme internal forces and stresses. Extreme in this case means minimal and maximal.
Brute Force Method: This method checks every possible combination. While this can be seen as a ‘safer’ approach, it is also much slower and can even lead to memory issues due to the amount of generated combinations.
In Timber the results are influenced by the kmod factor which can cause a combination with lower internal forces to have a higher unity check.
For Timber checks in SCIA Engineer, the ‘brute force’ method is provided to calculate the force combinations which are then used in design checks, which is generally safer but slower approach and can lead to memory issues.