Over six years in and 430 posts down, the blog is moving along in various directions–perhaps orthogonal to previous directions, which is not a bad thing. But what are those previous directions?
To help answer that question, I compiled a list of the 30 most read posts over the blog’s lifetime. All but one of the top 30 were pressed in or before 2022. Apparently, I grabbed the low-hanging fruit early, and that fruit has had time to ferment into evergreen content.
While I participate in ZeroPoMo, your assignment is to follow the countdown and read one post a day this November.
- Failure to Solve
- Plastic Rotation
- Recorders Not Recording?
- Norms and Tolerance
- Force-Based Beam-Column Integration Options
- Eigenvalues of the Stiffness Matrix
- P-M Interaction by the Book
- Load Patterns and Time Series
- Trapezoidal Beam Loads
- The Basics of Frame Element Localization
- Rayleigh Damping Coefficients
- Hysteretic Pinching Parameters
- OpenSees Shells by the Seashore
- It’s Not Load Control
- Meshing for Column Loads
- Modal Participation Factors
- Right Under Your Nose
- How to Record Section Curvature
- A Marathon, Not a Sprint
- A Vector in the x-z Plane
- Handle Your Constraints with Care
- A Tale of Two Element Formulations
- Failed to Get Compatible …
- How to Cite OpenSees
- Verifying Ain’t Easy
- OpenSees Tcl to Python Converter
- Torsion with Fiber Sections
- How to Record Fiber Response
- Be Careful with Modal Damping
- Gimme All Your Damping, All Your Mass and Stiffness Too
I’m not surprised by any entry in the list as each post addresses a perennial pain point among OpenSees users.
Is there a post not on the list that solved an OpenSees problem for you? Let me know in the Comments section below. I’ll respond with the post’s ranking.
For example, if you comment “No CAPS When You Spell the Framework’s Name helped me remember how to capitalize OpenSees”, I’ll respond with “Awesome, that’s post number 93”.

Hi Professor,
Yeah, you’re right, and solution of most of the problems that arise in OpenSees can be found here. I think we need also a post that answer an important question:
Why you always emphasize that “OpenSEES” is wrong and “OpenSees” is correct!
A problem that I have seen thousands in articles!
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Start with the Correct Static Resisting Force was eye-opening for me and helped me solve some estimation problems using OpenSees. Also, it helped me get into nonlinear analysis.
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That post should be top 10! But it’s only number 117.
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Awesome post Prof. Scott. Bookmarked and sent to my students.
Well, I’m curious about my two favorites of this year: See the Convergence and The Good, the Not So Bad, and the Full General. Very useful both now that we’re analyzing several big 3D models.
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Thanks! See the Convergence is 72 while The Good, the Not so Bad, and the Full General (only one year old) is 266.
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[like] JS Nie reacted to your message:
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