Structural analysis best package

Which is the best package to draw up structural analysis problems. I need beam or truss, constraints, displacements, springs, loads, thermal actions and so on.

-
Can you provide an image (or a link to one image) showing exactly the kind of diagrams you are planning to draw? –  Gonzalo Medina Feb 2 at 1:02
latex-community.org/know-how/472-tikz-structural-analysis. Have a look at this link, here you can find Tikz library, forstructuralanalysis. It easily creates hinges, beams, supports etc. –  Umz Feb 2 at 1:31
@Umz: I think "structuralanalysis" is a very well done macro but has not spring or displacements so I'm look a little better or complete –  marchetto Feb 2 at 1:45
@ marchetto, It has spring option in it. If you see its manual, although manual is in german but going through examples one can learn to create some usefull stuff. I am not sure what do you mean by displacements?I shall post a simple example and a bit more detail into an answer just for an introduction.@Gonzalo Medina I just try to put a simple example(from manual) and another worked out example to just elaborate OP, that it could be usefull. –  Umz Feb 2 at 3:25
@marchetto I recently read the documentation of that style. It has the displacements loads in the pages 14 and 18 of the 2d documentation and springs in the page 10 of the documentation. –  Enthusiastic Student Oct 22 at 12:47

Since I could not include further detail in my comment, I post it in this section.

The tikz library structuralanalysis provides some basic structural stuff which can be usefull to create hinges, supports, beams etc. This library provides 10 different commands \point, \beam,\support,\hinge,\load or \lineload and \temperature, \internalforces,\dimensioning,\influenceline ,\notation and \addon. The author of the library has provided with 4 types of beams (by default), 6 supports, 5 hinges and 3 types of loads (moment and forces at a point) and 4 types of lineloads (distributed forces). I just put a simple example.

\documentclass[11pt]{report}
\usepackage{structuralanalysis}
\usepackage{siunitx}
\begin{document}

\begin{tikzpicture}
\point{a}{0}{0};
\point{fprime}{.15}{1}
\point{b}{-.5}{.12};
\point{c}{.5}{.12};
\point{d}{-.5}{.3};
\point{e}{.5}{.3}
\point{f}{0}{1};

\support{3}{a};
\hinge{1}{b}
\hinge{1}{c}
\beam{4}{d}{e}
\beam{4}{d}{f}
\beam{4}{f}{e}
\hinge{1}{f}
\point{g}{6}{1}
\beam{4}{fprime}{g}
\dimensioning{1}{fprime}{g}{2}[\SI{2}{\m}];
%\point{force}{-2}{1.5}
%\notation{1}{force}{F=10KN}% Just to show the unit and magnitude of the hypothetical force
\end{tikzpicture}


Note I worked out this simple support using the basic functions of the library. Spring is given bydefault. I show it below.

\begin{tikzpicture}
\point{a}{0}{0};
\support{5}{a}[45];
\end{tikzpicture}


[45] is to rotate the spring. One can set it to 0 for no rotation. Offcourse further knowledge of TikZ would enhance one's capability to go deep, but as far as simple structures are concerned, this library is quite usefull in my opinion. For further references see the manual of this library available at here. And you can download .sty file from here.

EDIT I also put the structure which you have shown in the link. One possible way to do that can be this (using the same library):

 \begin{tikzpicture}
\point{a}{0}{0};
\point{first}{-1}{0}
\notation{1}{first}{A};
\support{1}{a}[0];
\point{b}{8}{0}
\beam{4}{a}{b}
\dimensioning{1}{a}{b}{-2.5}[\SI{2}{\m}];
\point{c}{8}{-1.5}
\support{3}{c}
\point{c2}{7.5}{-1.32}
\hinge{1}{c2}
\point{c3}{8.5}{-1.32}
\hinge{1}{c3}
\point{beam1}{7.55}{-1.15}
\point{beam2}{8.55}{-1.15}
\beam{4}{beam1}{beam2}
\beam{4}{beam1}{b}
\beam{4}{beam2}{b}
\notation{1}{b}{B};
\point{D}{4}{1.74};
\notation{1}{D}{D};
\beam{4}{a}{D}
\beam{4}{D}{b}
\dimensioning{2}{b}{D}{11}[$\sqrt{3}$];
\dimensioning{3}{b}{D}{-2.5}[\SI{2}{\m}];
\point{C}{8}{1.74}
\notation{1}{C}{C}
\beam{4}{D}{C}
\beam{4}{C}{b}
\dimensioning{3}{a}{D}{2.5}[\SI{2}{\m}];
\dimensioning{1}{D}{C}{2.3}[\SI{2}{\m}];
\point{f}{4}{2.5}
\notation{1}{force}{$F=\SI{10}{\N}$}

You should load siunitx and then use, say, \notation{1}{force}{$F=\SI{10}{\N}$}. (The same for the lengths.) –  Svend Tveskæg Feb 2 at 8:45
I'll change your code for using siunitx a bit; it can be done in a 'better' way. (I hope you don't mind.) –  Svend Tveskæg Feb 2 at 14:05