ASDIP CONCRETE is a structural engineering software for the design of concrete members, such as continuous beams. It includes a great feature, the Beam Design Manager. This post is a brief overview of how this feature works, and how to use it to complete the design in less time and boost your productivity.
Design of concrete beams
The design of concrete continuous beams may be time-consuming. After specifying the supports and applied loads, it is necessary to analyze the beam in order to find the shear forces and bending moments at any point along the beam. For multi-span continuous beams with concentrated and distributed loads, this becomes very complex and time-consuming, and a software may be required. ASDIP CONCRETE accurately generates the shear and moment diagrams, per load combination, as shown below.
Once the shear and moment diagrams are generated, it is necessary to reinforce the beam in such a way that the structural strength exceeds the calculated shears and moments along the beam. This means ϕVn > Vu and ϕMn > Mu. If the beam is subjected to torsion, then ϕTn > Tu.
How do you calculate the beam strength?
In the Reinforcement tab specify the top bars, the bottom bars, side bars, and the stirrups for each span of the beam, as shown above. Based on this information, the section geometry, and the material properties, ASDIP CONCRETE calculates the shear, flexural, and torsional strength along the beam accurately.
The user could do the design from scratch by selecting the number and size of the rebars and stirrups in the beam, in a trial-and-error exercise, until finally the provided strength is greater than the calculated internal forces. However, this labor would be tedious and time-consuming.
Concrete Beam Design Manager
Fortunately, ASDIP CONCRETE includes a feature to perform this task. The Beam Design Manager is a tool that performs a preliminary design of a concrete beam based on the loading conditions and bar preferences. The Beam Design Manager will calculate the required number of reinforcing bars and stirrups in the beam to make sure that provided strength is enough at every location along the beam.
To open the Design Manager, click on the button at the top of the Reinforcement page. Specify the preferred bar sizes, then click on the Design button, as shown below.
The Design Manager will perform this full task with the simple click of a button. The designer can complete and fine-tune the design in a few minutes with minimal effort. Note in the screenshot below that the software shows the shear and bending strengths as a background of the shear and moment diagrams, for easy visual comparison. The diagrams can be sorted by load combination.
Takeaway
ASDIP CONCRETE includes the Beam Design Manager, which will produce a preliminary design of the concrete beam, just with the click of a button. Further manual refinement can be done quick and easily. This feature may save the user hours of time and effort.
For engineering background, see the blog post Continuous Concrete Beam Design: A Structural Challenge. For the user-interface see the blog post Continuous Beam Design Using ASDIP CONCRETE. For our collection of blog posts about concrete design please visit Concrete Design.
Detailed information is available about this structural engineering software by visiting ASDIP CONCRETE. You are invited to download the Free 15-day Software Trial or go ahead and Place your Order.