Thanks, trying it right now. It is possible to combine basic shapes to create some more complex sections? I am working with repairs to aircraft fuselage stringers, so my starting point is a top hat section with flanged edges, to which I am attaching c-section extrusions either side, then maybe a L-extrusion in the corners etc etc. Get the idea? All of the sections I am creating can be broken down into rectangle.
For complex shapes you have to define the shape with coordinates (on the Coords sheet) at the moment. I'm thinking about adding routines to allow simple shapes to be combined, but other things have priority at the moment. It's open source, so maybe MiketheEngineer might like to spend a couple of minutes doing it for us.
I was thinking more on the lines of I-beams and hollow sections.. What your are talking about is bit more complex.. Archon at $40.00 has a rather decent program for doing these things.... Not easy BUT cheap!!
Mike - it's not really the cost, I just enjoy doing these things myself. I think I'll have a go at adding the feature to combine shapes to my spreadsheet when I have some spare time. Not a 3 minute job, but not a huge amount of work either.
IDS. If you do add this feature, be sure to allow for different weighting factors (such as modular ratios) to be applied to the different component shapes.
IDS. If you do add this feature, be sure to allow for different weighting factors (such as modular ratios) to be applied to the different component shapes.
I was thinking of a standard shape made of one material being embedded in a shape of a different material. A sort of (linear) generalisation of reinforced concrete.
Such calculations may be very complex for application in excel. The sectional properties of polygonal sections can be calculated using the Green's theorem. You may try using another program or use a more advanced programming environment for such tasks, for example C# etc.
Regards.
Analysis and Design of arbitrary cross sections Reinforcement design to all major codes
Moment Curvature analysis
Not really, this is well within the capabilities availbale within Excel. The only difficulty was applying a correct algorithm, but having thought about it that's not too difficult either. The only remaining problem is finding some spare time to actually do it.
Thanks Pete. I think I might make an update my next project, with:
[ul]
[li]Function to combine shapes into a compound shape[/li]
[li]Provision for input of modular ratios[/li]
[li]Allow shapes within another shape to be specified as either additive or displacing[/li]
[li]Plotting function for compound shapes[/li]
[li]Not sure about torsion constants. Quite difficult to do properly I think[/li]
[/ul]
