Recommend shape properties software 3

[CTW]

I was planning on buying IES' ShapeBuilder software but they don't allow first time buyers to pay by purchase order (only way I'll be able to pay). Oh well, their loss of money. Anyway I really liked the capabilities of that program and was wondering if anyone could recommend an equivalent program.

 

[JAE]

RISA has their Section program.

http://www.risatech.com

 

[lippie]

STAAD has something called Sectionwizard (

http://www.reiworld.com)

and I think there is one offered by Enercalc.

 

[ChipB]

If you have full blown AutoCAD, you can use it.

 

[epr]

ChipB, I wasn't aware that you can compute section properties in AutoCAD. How is it done?

 

[ChipB]

Draw the section in Autocad, change it to a region, do a massprop command on it, note the nuetral axis coordinates. Move the region's neutral axis to 0,0, and do another massprop on it. It'll kick it out for you.

 

[JAE]

AutoCadd does do what ChipB says, but it takes longer to build your shape, figure out the centroid, and move it over to the 0,0 point than it does in some of the other software, also, the other software is much less expensive (assuming you don't already have Autocadd) and gives you more output values to work with.

 

[CTW]

Thanks for everyone's help. I'll look into your suggestions.

 

[mike80]

A nice Excel spreadsheet is available free at

http://yakpol.net/

which calculates section properties. The section can be defined by 2 or 3 different methods.

 

[pulshakha]

ChipB,
Your suggestion shows a quick and handy solution. But please tell how to change the neutral axis to 0,0?
Thanks.