CISC CAN/CSA S16.1 Steel Section Design

I developed this spreadsheet that can design Beam under flexural, Beam-Column under Uniaxial and biaxial moment in accordance to CISC CAN/CSA S16.1 Structural Steel Design.

The spreadsheet results are compared to Examples in CISC Handbook and the results match exactly.

The spreadsheet results also compare with the CSA Beam Selection Table and the results also match exactly. This program can be used to assist in the design of steel elements to CISC CAN/CSA S16.1.

I will be developing more of the spreadsheet and for those interested, you can contact me for a copy.

Analysis of Beam Section - CSA A23.3 - 04

The following spreadsheet demonstrate my program that can analyse any rectangular beam section. The similar program can analyse rectangular column, circular column which will be demonstrated in the my future blog.

 Eg. 2.1 -The CSA concrete design handbook give the moment as = 207kNm

My spreadsheet Mr = 205.9 kNm

Eg. 2.4 - CSA concrete design handbook give the moment as = 675kNm

My spreadsheet Mr = 690 kNm

There is a slight discrepancy but it is due to the section analysis is very accurately calculate the neutral axis and checking the yield strength of the tension and compression steel.

So it can be seem that the spreadsheet is very accurate in computing the section capacity based on CSA A23.3 - 04.

Retaining Wall Design to CSA A23.3

This spreadsheet design the retaining wall in accordance to CSA A23.3. The spreadsheet also has version for BS8110 & CP65. The analysis of the FOS for the retaining wall does not differ much from code to code. The spreadsheet has widely been used in my project for the last 10 years and has proven to be a reliable spreadsheet.

Column Analysis - Canadia Code A23.3-04

The following spreadsheet can analyse both rectangular and circular columns.

For the example in the CPCA Concrete design handbook, the column example using PCACOL program and also from the tables give Pf=500kN, Mr=192kNm. The spreadsheet give Pf=500kN, Mr= 194kNm.

As can be seen, the spreadsheet yiedl very accurate results.

 

 I will show the rectangular beam analysis spreadsheet that anlayse beam. 

Beam Flexure & Shear Design to Canadian Code CSA23.3-04

The following is the simple spreadsheet that was written for CSA A23.3-04 code.

The spreadsheet results are compare with the Concrete Design Handbook examples and found to be accurate. The following are the comparison.

Concrete Design Handbook                          Spreadsheet Program

Eg.2.1  Mr = 209 kNm  As=1200mm2        As = 1222mm2                                                        

Eg. 2.2  As = 2468mm2                               As = 2489mm2

Eg. 2.4 As = 5674 mm2, As' = 1047mm2    As=5675mm2, As' = 1050mm2

The values of spreadsheet tally with the CSA A24.3 design handbook. The program is accurate. I shall extend this to all the one way, two way slab design, retaining wall, columns design etc.

Next time, I will post my spreadsheet that can analyse the rectangular , circular columns and beams section.

FRP Strengthening of RC Structure - CSA A23.3

Further to the development of the spreadsheet in CSA A23.3, I have developed the FRP strengthening of concrete structures based on the ISIS Concrete Educational Module. The resouces of ISIS are simply wonderful and fill with useful information.
The following is the screenshot of the spreadsheet and the results are compared with Example 1 and the Assignment example 1 in Appendix B of ISIS Concrete Education Module No. 4. As can be seen, the results match correctly for the neutral axis with slight difference of moment capacity of 1.96% only. This difference is inmaterial as it is due to rounding off in the manual calculation.The spreadsheet is only halfway done as I still need to include the shear portion. But this will be the easy task. I will publish the complete spreadsheet for all to download and test.


CSA A23.3 with FRP strengthening and with steel plate strengthening are almost completed and will be published in the couple of weeks time. Most of it already written in BS8110, TR55. I have not yet published them due to the limited examples for testing the spreadsheet. If anyone can direct me with websites that contain examples, I will be glad to verify the programs and publish them for testing.

Continuous Beam Analysis and Design Using OpenOffice

As mentioned in the earlier post, OpenOffice is free. My idea is to convert all my Excel spreadsheets with Macro to OpenOffice Calc programs. Remember the OpenOffice Calc is free and engineers are generally poor. If we don't have to pay for Excel, we could save quite a fair bit in our works. Well to cut it short, here it is :

This is the screenshot of the similar Excel program that now is written in OpenOffice. The conversion from Excel to OpenOffice was actually simpler than I thought. At first, there are errors. But after closer look, I realise not all the formulas can be directly converted. It was not really the problem of OpenOffice as my codes actually contain very specific way of reading some information and this cannot be directly translated to OpenOffice. After some checking, the errors were corrected and the OpenOffice program output the same results as the Excel program (as expected).

What is difficult is the macro for excel cannot be directly convert to OpenOffice macro. This is the painful part for me, as there are not many books and resources on writing Macro for OpenOffice and the process is also much more tedious than VBA. After 2 weeks of on and off writing, main part of the Macro was in shape but one crucial problem was bugging me, ie how to unload the menu after popping up. I decided to stop for a week and send the code to a friend who are familiar with OpenOffice to take a look. He is helpful but can't really give the solution. Then suddenly, I come across a website and briefly talk about the similar issue (not exactly but was along that line). I copy the idea and "hola", it solved. Now the macro works exactly like Excel program.

I am waiting for the release of OpenOffice 3.2 for testing the program further.