Adding steel colums to support beams

[mikeyb50]

How do you add a steel column at both ends of a beams points R1 and R2 instead of the usual bearing additions

[Tony Bryer]

You add the two columns in as separate items. Their position in the Project Manager list must be somewhere below the beam. You can enter each reaction using the B/F facility within the column load edit dialog. Generally the simplest detailing is to support the beam on cap plates, i.e. a plate welded to the cut end of the column. With a cap plate give the load a position of 1,2,3 or 4 as per the diagram and an offset of 0. This denotes that the load is being taken as acting at the face of the column, generating a moment of load x column depth/2.