Beam Bending Spreadsheet or Program

[medeek]

I've seen a lot of beam spreadsheets out there but I am wondering if anyone has one that also deals with lateral torsional buckling for sawn lumber and glulam beams. CL < 1.0

 

[medeek]

I couldn't find one that was suitable for my needs so I've started working on a beam calculator that should be useful not only to myself but hopefully others:

Beam Calculator

 

[IRstuff]

Is this a finished product? Much of your help links don't appear to be working. The ones that do go somewhere seem to be inconsistent in font/size. Additionally, the link for "clear span" points to something titled "Ground Snow Loads" (

http://design.medeek.com/resources/truss/DOCUMENTS/GUIDE_SNOW_LOAD_PROVISIONS_ASCE7-10.pdf)

TTFN
faq731-376

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[medeek]

Sorry it is still a work in progress, however in a couple more days it should be fully functional.

 

[medeek]

I'm making good progress on this app however as I've worked my way through the beam stability factor and the beam slenderness ratio it brought up a very good question. If I have a 2x12 beam that is comprised of 3 members and they are nailed together securely how does this affect the slenderness ratio. I can also take advantage of the repetitive member factor. I initially thought that the slenderness ratio was just one member but now I'm thinking the "b" in the denominator should be the 3 * b, which because of the squaring changes things quite a bit.

 

[medeek]

I've input in a number of lumber species and grades. It's now ready for someone to put it through its paces. Currently only the Sawn Lumber option will give you an engineered output. Give it a whirl , any feedback good or bad is appreciated.

 

[medeek]

I've been thinking about adding other common load cases and support configurations. I've got the AWC Design Aid #6 with about 32 different load/support configurations. What other load cases would be the most useful seeing as I can't possibly program this many cases in the limited time I have to work on this?

I'm thinking a distributed uniform load over a continuous two span beam would be a common problem encountered as well as an distributed uniform load on a beam with an overhang.

 

[medeek]

I haven't completely put the calculator through exhaustive testing yet but nearly as I can tell it is producing correct results.

To Do List:

1.) Add more common load cases as given in the AWC Design Aid #6
2.) Add the rest of the sawn lumber species from the Table 4A NDS Supplement
3.) Complete the programming for Glulam and SCL options.
4.) Add timbers 5x5 and larger and reference design values from Table 4D
5.) Add reference design values for Glulam from Table 5A
6.) Add reference design values for SCL from manufacturer's literature
4.) Add new features as requested.

The PDF output is now working for dimensional sawn lumber. At some point I might configure it so that within the client control panel an engineering firm can customize the title block of the PDF report so it reflects their company information and logo as well as remove the disclaimer at the end of the report, then it might have some real world use for other engineers.

 

[medeek]

I'm working on adding these three load conditions:

Note, that any one of the applied forces can be input as zero so the actual load cases are quite large with these additional three configurations.

These 3 load cases will encompass the following load cases from the AWC Design Aid #6:

18,20,21, 22, 27,28, 29,30, 31,32

the current load cases cover the AWC load case 1 and 7.

The different span lengths must be greater than zero. The bearing lengths will be assumed the same for all supports.

 

[medeek]

Glulam beam option is now working as well as its PDF report.

 

[medeek]

I haven't entered many glulam beams from Table 5A yet but I think the most commonly used types are listed for now. The nuts and bolts are there so now its just a matter of entering some tabulated data for all of the stress classes/combos.

I've tested the glulam option against a number of sample problems from "Design of Wood Structures ASD/LRFD", so far it is giving the correct answers, however further testing will be required.

I do have a few issues with the drop down menus not sticking when one hits the back button on their browser, I'm still working on this.