Looking for a Software for general structural engineering needs? 1

What are you trying to do, start a rumble?

HAHAHAHAHAH. Ideally yes! fight for my custom!

Give us you needs/info

- codes
- structural type
- size
- credit card number
- credit card pin

- Anything I can decode with an Enigma machine
- I like to think of myself as the quiet, confident number cruncher
- Medium, or medium long if available
- Which one?

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just call me Lo.

More seriously Cragged, while residential work is not my area, I've heard of the following without too many expletives attached

[ul]
[li]IES Visual Analysis[/li]
[li]Tedds[/li]
[li]SkyCiv[/li]
[li]Woodworks[/li]
[li]Forte[/li]
[li]And of course, the odd collection of spreadsheets and nomographs[/li]
[/ul]

ClearCalcs and RisaCalc look promising, but haven't been around long enough for me to hear much

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just call me Lo.

Ha, I think I replied to your Reddit post as well! As my username implies - I work for ClearCalcs so you can take what I say with a grain of salt. All the alternatives Lo posted are good solutions for residential design. In particular, it is hard to rival a motivated engineer armed with Excel, macros and a few extra hours on their hands!

One thing I'd recommend is to "test out" the customer support. Try to reach out to your favourites with an engineering question and see what kind of response time you get. In the middle of a crunch for a project and some issue comes up, it's nice to get an answer in a few hours instead of a week. In my experience, this ends up being the most important factor for a lot of engineers.

The other big thing is the calculation reports - at the end of the day you want your work to be approved by your building code official. I know that quite a few engineers end up picking whichever software their AHJ uses simply because it's easier to get approval. If you're using something different, clear printouts will probably make your life easier. It really depends how strict your local officials are.

I hope that helps a little bit - good luck with your hunt!

-Laurent

I think you have to throw EnerCalc in there too. I've used it and have liked it.... though I know some users get frustrated with it.

Disclosure: I used to work for RISA, and I know for for CSI. While my current employer doesn't have a whole lot of small applications aimed at residential construction, I should still state that my employment background certainly means that I could have some bias (real or perceived) in this discussion.

I agree with JoshPlumSE, I would add EnerCalc to the mix.

We use Enercalc, hand calcs, spreadsheets, RISA 3D, Simpson Anchor Designer, RetainPro, AISIWIN8, CFS12 (not the Simpson one), NCMA Masonry 7.0, Redspec, PTISlab, and a few others and work on a wide range of types of projects, large and small of all materials. If I were to need to do some fancy 3D modeling of a large structure, I would look at adding either RAM Structural + Concept or RISA Foundation+FLoor+Adapt.

Full disclosure: I work for ENERCALC.

But I can confidently recommend our newest offering, which is a subscription-based offering that includes Structural Engineering library modules, the RetainPro modules, and ENERCALC 3D, which is a FEM app. It will be able to be used as an installed app as well as a cloud-based app, and also offers cloud-based storage of project files.

I know that our modules are frequently used by designers of residential structures, and free evaluation software is available.

Director of Technical Services
ENERCALC, Inc.
Web:

The most used program in our company, for residential type design, is WoodWorks. Does wood/timber/glulam/clt/lvl (beams/columns/walls), plus steel beams and columns. It can do shear walls and wood connections if you subscribe to those modules, but they are used much less than the Sizer module. Very easy to use, good tech support.

Guys, I was hoping the op would give some code requirements etc, as he is Australian, my guess is he wants AS codes for 1720,1684 etc. Which would reduce the recommendations.

I have used ETABS (for concrete & steel), SAFE (for concrete slab & footings & mat), Enercalc (for quick member design, cantilevered retaining walls but stopped maintenance two years ago), RetainPro (for restrained walls but stopped maintenance 3 years ago), WoodWorks suite (mostly use Shearwall module).

Since I am too tired of doing load tracking for wood framing design, I have been developing an Addin for Etabs to do whatever WoodWorks Sizer do but in bulk automatically for members in Etabs models. I have built a huge database of wood species properties, common sections, factor tables and formula,...It's been working well so far and more or less like RISA (spreadsheet style). I don't have to track or do load transfer when design wood structures anymore (of course still have to do hand checks as needed when I see something off). Life couldn't be better. If CSI doesn't care about releasing wood design module, I may sell this in the future if I see interest from companies that have Etabs license but doesn't want to spend more for something like RISA. Who knows? I would have bought one if available.

Thanks all. Cool replies - super helpful. @rowingengineer you're right.

After taking a look it seems as if ClearCalcs is the best offering, easiest interface and best support. Will keep digging.

I'm not 100% sure about your requirements but Woodworks is a good option and they have awesome customer support. If your building is a bit more complicated, ETABS is great and cheaper than RAM, which was mentioned before.

For me, a 2D frame program, A retaining wall program, Forte, Excel and an HP15C.