IDEA StatiCa Announces ATECH Design as the Featured Company of the Month

ATECH Design is Malaysia’s first parametric structural steelwork and facade specialist consultant, providing advanced structural analysis and engineering design services. 

Founded in 2017 by Ir. Chew Ooi Teck, with 20 years of experience in structural engineering (architectural steelworks to heavy industrial structures), the company has successfully completed over 460 projects across architectural and industrial sectors.

Notable Project by ATECH Design

Dry Mortar Mixing Plant in Johor, Malaysia

The 39.7 m-high industrial steel structure in Johor was designed to support substantial superimposed dead loads, diverse operational load cases, and seismic actions. 

The structural analysis considered over 20 primary load cases, which were combined into approximately 290+ load combinations.

The overall structural design and joint detailing followed Eurocode standards, while seismic verification was performed according to EN 1998-1 and the Malaysian National Annex.

Engineering Challenges

The construction of the 39.7 m-high dry mortar mixing plant in Johor presented complex structural engineering challenges due to heavy operational loads, tall structural height, and seismic considerations.

The main steel frame had to resist large superimposed dead loads, heavy operational equipment loads, and seismic forces simultaneously. Beam-to-column and beam-to-beam connections were subjected to very high bending moments and shear forces. 

Under these conditions, hand calculations alone were insufficient to accurately determine force distribution or identify potential weak points. IDEA StatiCa was therefore used to evaluate joint behaviour, optimize beam and connection detailing.

Capacity design is a key principle of seismic design that ensures joints have sufficient deformation capacity during earthquake loading. The objective is to ensure structural framing undergoes controlled ductile behaviour to avoid collapse during an earthquake. 

In this project, the beams were designated as dissipative items, while the columns and joints were treated as non-dissipative items. Plastic hinges are designed to appear in dissipative items, while all non-dissipative items of the joint must be capable of safely transferring the forces due to the yielding of the dissipative items.

IDEA StatiCa provided an efficient way to perform this capacity design check through its Capacity Design Analysis. The yielding of the dissipative item was "ignored" while "over-loading" the non-dissipative items with its maximum plastic capacity. This helped to verify the joint capacity and structural redundancy. 

Another challenge in this project was the client’s requirement for the top of the beam to remain flat so that the steel checker plate could sit flush. This constraint further complicated the connection behaviour, making manual calculations impractical due to the number of assumptions required. As a result, IDEA StatiCa was used to perform this technically demanding analysis.

Key Joints Modelled in IDEA StatiCa

Conclusion

“IDEA StatiCa reduced design time by 75-80% compared to manual methods, enabling efficient optimization of critical beam-to-column and beam-to-beam joints. This ensured Eurocode compliance, constructability, and fabrication efficiency. In addition, IDEA StatiCa enabled us to perform capacity design on complex connections that would not be feasible using hand calculations,” said Ir. Chew Ooi Teck, Executive Director, ATECH Design.

“Otte Group’s strong technical support was essential in delivering a robust, code-compliant steel structure within tight project timelines,” he said.

“With expertise in facade engineering and complex free-form structures, ATECH Design delivers innovative and efficient solutions for challenging steel and facade projects. We are glad to acknowledge them as our Featured Company of the Month,” said Jan Valicek, Regional Director APAC, IDEA StatiCa.