Wood Design

ASDIP WOOD is an engineering software that performs the structural design of wood members, such as biaxial columns, continuous beams, and wood bearing walls. 

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Structural wood is used in many countries around the world, mainly where large forest areas exist, which makes the economy of structural wood materials very attractive, compared to other forms of construction and the relatively simple skills required.

Structural wood structures consist of a series of members that interact to support the loads. In this type of construction, the members are fabricated at the shop an assembled at the field.

A typical wood floor may be supported by a series of beams and girders, which in turn are supported by the building columns or walls. The loads are then transferred to the foundation. The structural analysis consists on the calculation of the effects of the loads applied to the structure, also called the internal forces or required strengths. These are typically the shear and axial forces as well as the bending moments along the members that compose the structure.

The Wood Design Process

The wood design process consists of the interpretation of the analysis results and the application of the building code provisions to produce members both economic and structurally safe for the intended use. For example a wood beam design will consist of the calculation of the adequate flexural and shear strengths along the beam. The variation of these internal forces if usually represented by the shear and moment diagrams.

A wood column is a member mostly subject to compression and bending stresses. The design of a wood column mainly consists in the generation of the interaction diagram that represents the structural capacity. A wood wall consists of a series of compression members equally spaced, with sheathing at both faces, and exposed to out-of-plane pressures, usually due to wind, that produce a combination of compression and bending. Walls are slender members that must be checked for second order effects.

ASDIP WOOD includes the design of all these types of structural members described above. The ASDIP team publishes a series of blog posts on a regular basis covering many technical topics related to the design of wood structures. Our philosophy is to provide the engineering community in general, and particularly our customers, the required tools to complete the structural design tasks effectively in less time and with less effort. You are invited to download the 15-day free trial using the buttons below.