Connection Drawings

[Colin Mitchell]

Tony,

I'm using Pro-Steel 5.34d to design two 152*152UC's that both act as beams; and then use the draw connection feature to illustrate how one UC is connected to the other.

The drawings I get are attached and as you can see the dimension lines are not well aligned/placed with the items to which they relate.

Any suggestions as to what's gone awry?

Regards
Colin Mitchell

PS: I think the draw connection feature is a boon, so am keen to get it working properly

[Tony Bryer]

Thanks for the feedback: the drawing is scaled to fit the space available and from a quick look at your example it looks like the scaling algorithm isn't working too well with such small sections. I will take a look at this and see if it can be improved.

I hope to make the next release of ProSteel available in the next few weeks. The big enhancement will be the addition of beam splice calculations and these share many of the same drawing routines so your comments are very timely.

[factory-fit]

I hope to make the next release of ProSteel available in the next few weeks. The big enhancement will be the addition of beam splice calculations and these share many of the same drawing routines so your comments are very timely.

*At present I'm obliged to use a scrag-end of T***s' F*****k software, to join beams together on sites where access is difficult and we need to break up long members; most recently at Canary Wharf, London, where closing down the Mall wasn't an option and fire corridors were the only alternative.

If you add or have added splicing routines to Prosteel then I can uninstall the last remnants of their software, which is resentfully kept on this P.C. because of the rather pushy techniques I've been put through by CSC's salesmen. It is glitchy and costs a fortune to update, and a consulting civil engineer I know agrees too.

In contrast of course with Greentram, who only contact us when updates (free) are available, and at your reasonable yearly licence fee.

Or have I missed this update already, and is Prosteel already capable of designing beam end connections to break them into smaller lengths?

Kevin

[Tony Bryer]

Beam splicing was added to ProSteel in release 5.40c, 29 Oct last. You can have one or two splices per beam: they can be end plate or flange plate splices but both must be identical. On the beam edit dialog there's an extra tab where you enter the splice data.

Note also that release 5.40i has just been posted: this fixes a potentially serious bug relating to angle cleat and fin plate connections.