AUTOMATED DESIGN OF STEEL BUILDINGS

CONTROLS ON DESIGN PROCESS

The engineer may control the automatic design process in many ways:

• Choose the design code: American, Canadian or European
• Select the design method: LSD, LRFD, ASD, WSD or Plastic, with ductile provisions for seismic force resisting frames
• Select any steel and concrete strength; different strength for beams, joists, trusses, columns, walls; different values in different parts of the building
• Choose the methods of computing gravity floor load distribution and lateral forces
• Preselect the member sizes and have them checked for adequacy or have the sizes selected automatically
• Impose minimum and maximum limits on the member sizes
• Equate depth for a group of members
• Force a group of members to have the same size
• Specify splice locations for columns and truss chords
• Restrict member selection to specific shapes, such as W, M, HS
• Override the code specified values for allowable stresses, deflections, etc.
• Input tables of special shapes to augment the prestored tables