STEEL DESIGN software overview

Steel Design Software easily designs or checks steel beams, columns and single span beam- columns using the ASD and LRFD standards. Features an intuitive graphic interface and detailed reporting capabilities. When used with Frame Analysis or VersaFrame you can perform code checks or design for an entire model at once. All structural engineering software should be this productive!

This Steel Design Software was written to provide engineers with the highest quality AISC steel designs (ASD and LRFD) possible. The program brings a new level of quality to engineering software by allowing the engineer to view complete, detailed computation procedures for the code checking and design of steel members. This incredibly detailed report lists every computation performed in the design process including what parameter is being computed, the formula used, the computed value and the location in the AISC manual where the code is being referenced. Obviously summary reports are also available if all the detail is not required or for summary review. These reports are created in a highly formatted Rich Text Format document that is automatically displayed in Microsoft Word Viewer or any user selected word processor.

Engineers gain the ability to validate the quality of computer designed steel members. Before the introduction of Digital Canal’s Steel Design Series, the output of steel design software was very limited, often reducing the entire design of a member to a single number (an interaction equation check). This resulted in designers either "taking a leap of faith" and trusting the computer output with little verification or spending a great deal of time trying to reproduce the software's computations manually. By providing designers with complete code checking reports, Digital Canal’s Steel Design Software greatly increases the integrity of computer based steel design while still being very fast and easy to use.

This is an essential tool for any engineer who checks or designs individual steel members such as single or multi-span beams, column, braces, truss chords, etc. You can set the beam geometry up, create loads, analyze and design steel members in less than 5 minutes and without defining unnecessarily complex “models.” Because of the very limited amount of user input, the ability to analyze and design members subject to complex loading and accurate and extraordinarily detailed output, the Steel Design Series will increase the quantity and quality of your work when compared to using AISC tables (or other “by hand” methods) or competing programs.

Digital Canal’s Steel Design Software includes two modules, Steel Beam Design and Steel Beam/Column Design. The Steel Beam module is used to design or check continuous beams (1 to 18 spans) for bending, shear and deflections about the beam’s strong axis. The Beam/Column module checks or designs members (ASD and LRFD) subject to axial loads, end moments and transverse loads about both axes.