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Creating standard-looking beam diagrams

Flying Whale

Mechanical
Dec 20, 2024
2
I'm looking for a way to document beam diagrams without having to manually place lines and arrows in a word file, which will inevitably look crooked and different each time. I need something standard, preferably with all the symbols available (pin, roller, load, distributed load, etc) that I could snap in place, and get something similar to how they're depicted in textbooks, and just export an image of the complete thing.

I've searched for software that could do that but I've only found online calculators, which although they generate and export nice graphics, do not work for me because they only accept numbers and I'm working fully parametrically. Besides I have all my calculations already written out.

I've attached an example below of what I'm looking for. Graphs for shear and moment are nice to have but not as crucial as the beam, supports and loads. Colors are not required.

Thanks for the help!

1734674438915.png
 
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To be honest I'd write an Octave script for that. Or if I was lazy, ask ChatGPT to write it and then sort it out myself.

Here's one it did earlier. It is wrong.

1734738017461.png
 

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