The short answer is I'm not sure there really is a good one to be had...
We use Excel and our spreadsheet is reaching about 15 tabs, most multipage, it only does one method of wind and seismic analysis and it is getting so sensitive that we have strict instructions in the office regarding changes to the sheet.
We have a client who wrote and sells a nice beam program. He spent quite a few hours studying our sheet, talking to his clients and jurisdictions, all with the intent of writing software to perform a lateral analysis on a wood framed structure. He eventually concluded that the market was too small and the "math problem" too complex and dynamic to boil down into a useful program. I believe he also spent a fair amount of time searching for any competing products that may exist in the market place. I don't believe there were any complete packages and he concluded it was likely due to the previously mentioned challenges.
If you know any Plan Reviewers or Building Officials, they may be able to steer you towards a copy of calculations from a good engineer in your area. Green engineering paper is a good place to start along with a copy of "Design of Wood Structures" by Donald Breyer. He is highly regarded on this topic...
If someone knows of something, please let us both know...
Thanks. I bought the book yesterday and have a brand new pack of green paper waiting to be desecrated. I want to use a program as a second source to check my hand calcs mostly. Thanks again.
RVSWA-
Can your IT guys save your spreadsheets on the company server such that they can be accessed by everyone and changed by no one?
That is how our spreadsheets are set up. We can open them from the server, then "save as" in the project folder and then we can use them for design or tweak them as necessary. The good part about that is that as things are tweaked in the spreadsheet, the original copy remains free from their intrusions.
Structural EIT -
Yes, after a fashion I suppose, we keep a read-only version on the server. When it is accessed they aren't allowed to save over it... I've only cleaned it out a half dozen times before NEVER forgetting to setting it as read only. Is there another way, I'd be interested.
Are you looking for academic or professional reasons? Your posts imply limited understanding of wood design and wind loading. Both are pretty complex considering Florida's wind loads.
