StruCalc vs. EnerCalc

[medeek]

I've recently been testing software for the design of residential and light commercial square and continuous footings. Has anyone had experience with either of these software products in this capacity?

I am liking StruCalc's very simple interface however the one thing I am noticing with StruCalc for a continuous footing (when reinforcement is enabled) the callout for a min. #4 bars placed transverse to the stemwall. In residential construction I have never seen this done except for point loaded square footings. Typically I've seen 1 to 3 longitudinal #4 bars. Most continuous footings for single story residences that I see are typically 12" wide and 6" deep with (2) #4 bars horizontal cont.

Okay, another observation, in the print preview screen of the StruCalc app. in brackets next to the transverse reinforcement: (unnecessary).

Anyhow, feedback or comments on these two tools would be helpful.

A confused student is a good student.

 

[medeek]

Also tell me more about your algorithm.

A confused student is a good student.

 

[medeek]

He is definitely a couple pay grades above me. I really like how he uses the graphing functions of Excel to create some of his diagrams (frame diagrams for instance), I will be taking notes.

A confused student is a good student.

 

[medeek]

Side-by-side comparison of the same stemwall (concrete beam) analyzed as rigid and as semi-rigid.

Playing around with the numbers a bit I noticed that the rigid analysis closely approximates the flexible method when the resultant is within the kern or not to far outside of it (ie. lateral loads are small in comparison to vertical loads). However, in the case where the lateral loads dominate, as in the diagrams above you can see that the max. moment on the beam is double what is given in the flexible analysis, also the pressure wedge is much smaller with the rigid beam causing the max. soil pressures to be almost double.

I think I could use the simpler rigid analysis, noting that it will give me more conservative results when lateral loads dominate.

A confused student is a good student.

 

[KootK]

My stuff is attached. The programming blocks of interest are:

Vp: shear for a simple beam with a point load located anywhere on the span.
Mp: moment for a simple beam with a point load located anywhere on the span.
Vw: shear for a simple beam with a linear varying load that starts and stops anywhere along the beam and has arbitrary start and stop intensity values.
Mw: moment for a simple beam with a linear varying load that starts and stops anywhere along the beam and has arbitrary start and stop intensity values.

The point load functions are pretty basic but the linearly varying stuff is gold if I do say so myself. I've got deflection functions as well but I don't think that's of any use to you. The way that I've implemented the algorithms is to run each load through the shear and moment functions at each location and just add up the results. This is easy as pie in MathCAD. Perhaps a little less so with Excel. But then I'm not so hot at Excel.

I like to debate structural engineering theory -- a lot. If I challenge you on something, know that I'm doing so because I respect your opinion enough to either change it or adopt it.

 

[medeek]

I'm pretty versed in Excel but when it comes to fancy algorithms I much rather prefer programming in Perl. Thank-you for the code. I'm currently trying to setup the Shear and Moment diagrams in Excel for the stemwall, progress is slow but steady.

A confused student is a good student.