When the footings are modeled using separate boundaries, results for one boundary will be visible at a time but you should still be able to analyze/design each boundary and also view the results for each boundary. If you are having difficulty with the same, please upload the model and I will take a look.
Regarding large analysis time for mat analysis, as you know, SFA defines support springs as compression only and hence the analysis is an iterative type analysis which may take some time. However 5 hours of analysis time seems absurdly high. Here are some of the things that you can do to cut down on analysis time
1. Ensure that the model is on a local drive and NOT on a network drive. I have seen this being the problem more often than not.
2. Ensure that you are including ONLY those combination cases as part of your job that requires an analysis. Avoid including basic primary load cases like wind or seismic acting by themselves as these can lead to huge number of iterations leading to large analysis times.
3. Avoid using a mesh size that is very fine. The software’s meshing algorithm is equipped to generating finer mesh at regions where needed and so try using a target mesh size may be double or three times what you are currently using.
If the above does not help, please upload the SFA file and I will take a look
Regarding large analysis time for mat analysis, as you know, SFA defines support springs as compression only and hence the analysis is an iterative type analysis which may take some time. However 5 hours of analysis time seems absurdly high. Here are some of the things that you can do to cut down on analysis time
1. Ensure that the model is on a local drive and NOT on a network drive. I have seen this being the problem more often than not.
2. Ensure that you are including ONLY those combination cases as part of your job that requires an analysis. Avoid including basic primary load cases like wind or seismic acting by themselves as these can lead to huge number of iterations leading to large analysis times.
3. Avoid using a mesh size that is very fine. The software’s meshing algorithm is equipped to generating finer mesh at regions where needed and so try using a target mesh size may be double or three times what you are currently using.
If the above does not help, please upload the SFA file and I will take a look