Technical support
- Support Forums - please use the forums for questions whose answers may help other users too
- User-specific support queries (e.g. activation key problems) support@eurobeam.co.uk
- 130-page EuroBeam manual now available from Lulu.com, £9.95 + P&P Details
Change log
Release 1.20c, 7 May 2012
- Various minor presentational improvements - no calculation values are affected
- Any value entered for the permissible timber beam cantilever beyond R1 deflection value was ignored - fixed
Release 1.20b, 22 April 2012
- Timber beam span/cantilever default deflections corrected to L/250 and L/125 (EC5 Table NA.4) from 0.003L/0.006L
- Lower case 'l' for column effective lengths now uppercased (previously was ignored so effective length 1.0l taken as 1.0)
- Splice drawing in beam edit dialog could initially be wrong size
- Print Page Heading only option gave a blank sheet - fixed
Release 1.20a, 10 April 2012
This is the first general release of EuroBeam: until now it has only been available as an early experience release to SuperBeam and ProSteel users with current update cover but now is being made available as an independent program. The single user price is £250, £150 if you have SuperBeam or ProSteel or £100 if you have both (all +VAT). Early experience purchasers don't need to pay any more of course (except for a manual if required).
Manual: The manual is now available: if you buy EuroBeam after Easter 2012 and pay the full price you will be sent one; if you paid the early experience price you will need to buy a manual if you want one. Manuals (£9.95+P&P) can be ordered from Lulu (not us) - click here for ordering information.
Flitch beams
Flitch beam checking has now been implemented (it was inadvertently accessible in earlier releases but all the references to BS5628 would have alerted you to it not being Eurocode compliant). The methodology follows TRADA paper GD9.
Script pages
A Script Page uses the same scripting option as beam notes to produce a text page. We will aim to put a tutorial on this website in the next few weeks and will update the manual in due course.
PDF security changes
The print dialog now adds a PDF password field: if you enter a password, security is enforced as before; if you leave this field blank (it will show 'none') an open PDF is produced. The choice is yours, but if you are sending PDFs to other parties we would recommend that you password protect them. Any password you enter is remembered but you can change or delete it at any time.
Smaller changes and fixes:
- For steel and timber bearings the full screen edit button added in 1.10a is active with bearing=none. If you pressed this and entered a note, this was copied back to the dialog then lost when you pressed 'Apply'. Now the note status is changed to user defined if was none.
- psi0 values for snow have been corrected
- Bug fixed where a timber post had two B/F loads
- The timber post printout has been reworked to show more detail and improves the presentation (in particular for posts with offset loads the load diagram was printed twice)
- Range check error could be thrown for steel columns with minor axis effective length, Leff,z = 0 - fixed
- Range check error could be thrown on connection edit - fixed
- Entering a deflection limit with a lower case 'l' (e.g. 'l/360) would throw an error - fixed: now 'l' is automatically upppercased
- The sidebar on printouts now shows the characters used for decimal and thousands separators. We have done this as some Eurocode books and calculations follow the Eurocodes in using a comma as a decimal point (as is standard in mainland Europe) whilst we use system defaults, in the UK a comma as thousands separator and full stop as decimal separator.
- Probably of interest to technical support staff only: the installer now creates a log file listing the changes made during the install. The location and name of this file is shown on the Configuration, Information window.
Release 1.10b, 16 January 2012
- If you tried to click on the beam B/F load button it disappeared and was replaced by the notes pane - fixed
- The coding for snow loads has been changed - it is now SN for snow up to 1000m, ST for snow > 1000m
- The shear buckling expression shown on beam printouts was wrong though the answer was correct - fixed
- The Configuration, Standard Notes option has been renamed Configuration, Library
- Scripts for TJI 241mm and 302mm joists have been added.
- A new project, DemoGreek, lists out the Greek alphabet characters in upper and lower case with their names.
Release 1.10a, 23 December 2011
User scripts allowing the production of proprietary lintel and beam calculations
Beam web opening checking now implemented
Other fixes and changes (for more see program readme file)
- Steel column and timber post printouts mistakenly printed the total line between each load.
- In the Project Summary, column moments were mistakenly labelled as Mx and My, not My and Mz
- Placement of connection drawings within bounding frame has been improved. Previously the drawing title could be clipped in certain cases.
- The Project File Catalogue option has been moved to the File Menu where it more logically belongs.
- Tiny change to calculator: if you enter a number and press [Enter] or '=', the number is copied to the register as entered. Old: Enter 2.718; with 2DP it appeared on register as 2.718=2.72, 3D, 2.718=2.718. Now it appears as 2.718 regardless of DP setting. This is useful where you want to enter a number for use as a constant in following expressions
- An additional button below the parameter list in the Page Heading Dialog toggles between the display of the parameters themselves (.e.g. %D) and their current values (e.g. 18 Dec 2011)
- The Miscellaneous, Latest Information option didn't work - it was looking for a file called EUReadMe.htm, whilst the actual file is EuroBeamReadMe.htm
Release 1.05c, 14 August 2011
Fixes one small bug that crept into releases 1.05a/b and stopped you editing text pages.
Release 1.05b, 4 August 2011
Fixes one small bug that crept into release 1.05a. If you entered a variable load with a load w1 value of 0 (0.00 etc was fine) and saved the project, the load was deleted on reloading the project.
Release 1.05a, 1 August 2011
General changes and fixes
- Further bug fix re B/F loads not being handled correctly: where a B/F load referenced a column which in turn had one or more B/F loads the load was not brought forward
- Hollow sections in exported SB/PS projects were not recognised where wall thickness was an exact number of millimetres.
- You can now add notes to beam splices. Two tabs let you select either the splice drawing or splice notes field.
- Print copies defaulted to all - fixed
- Several changes made to improve error handling on OLE pages
Connections
- The connection edit dialog is now resizeable. The notes pane has been moved to the first page, and a small drawing on the connection is now displayed on the details page. This drawing is updated each time you press 'Apply'
- Some revisions have been made to the printouts to show workings more clearly
- Following guidance from SCI, the bearing resistance of a bolt group subject to some tension (end plate and cleat connection to support) now uses the 80% reduced shear resistance in determining the appropriate bearing resistance - see forum post here for more information. In certain rare instances this will reduce the load resistance of the connection
- Angle cleat connection checking now adds checking of shear and bearing resistance of bolt group to support
Release 1.04a, 31 May 2011
Connection checking added
Checking of angle web cleat, flexible end plate and fin plate connections has been added. This is handled in an almost identical way to ProSteel. For background information refer EC3-1-8 (EN1993-1-8) + National Annexe (N.B. - see below) and to the NCCI documents referenced on the printouts. ECCS publish a good inexpensive book on connection design - see our EuroBeam site books page. If you use the new connection routines for real-life projects we would advise particularly rigorous checking as the calculation code has been largely rewritten.
Note that the UK EC3-1-8 National Annexe overrides some of the default values in EC3-1-8. Some textbooks include worked examples that were apparently compiled before the publication of the NA so (for example) use a fu value of 430N/mm2 for S275 (410 in the NA) and a gM2 value of 1.25 for bolt shear and bearing (1.10)
Bug fix: if you added more than 10 documents to the Help, Other Documents menu, references to documents 11- were lost if you re-edited the list - fixed.
Latest release 1.03a, 13 May 2011
C1 Equivalent Moment Factor
The method used to calculate the equivalent moment factor, C1, for steel beams has been changed. EuroBeam now uses the formula suggested in the paper Critical Evaluation of Equivalent Moment Factor Procedures for Laterally Unsupported Beams, (Wong & Driver, AISC Engineering Journal First Quarter 2010 view). Like other formulae this uses the moments at the quarter points of the beam segment under consideration as well as the maximum moment within the segment. The signs of the moments are ignored.
C1 = 4Mmax/ (Mmax2 + 4Ma2 +7Mb2 +4Mc2)^0.5 (but <= 2.5)
where Ma, Mb and Mc are the quarter, mid-point and three-quarter moments We have adopted this formula as it is one of the easiest to follow and the paper cited above gives a clear justification for its use. It gives values that are slightly more conservative than those returned by the previous formulae. Note that the difference between the various formulae is a few percent at most. There is more information on this topic in the online help.
Other changes and fixes:
- N.B. Deflection due to B/F loads was ignored when calculating beam deflection - fixed
- Cantilever deflection (where applicable) not shown on steel beam calculations - added
- The C1 calculation for unrestrained twin and triple section beams was wrong (too low a value=conservative) - fixed
- The penultimate column on the steel beam lateral torsional buckling table was incorrectly headed Wy instead of Mc,Rd - fixed
- When a file exported from SuperBeam was read in, if the timber grade could not be matched (e.g. HemFir) it was silently changed to C14 though the description of the grade wasn't changed until the data was next edited. This has been changed so that the grade is changed - to D30 for Oak TH1 and THB, to D40 for Oak THA, otherwise to C16 - and an explicit notification to this effect is displayed.
- Timber calculation window title bar text was blank if the member failed - fixed
Release: 1.02a, 7 April 2011
Beam splice design and checking has been added and largely follows the way this is implemented in ProSteel, though obviously is based on Eurocode 3 (EC3-1-1 and EC3-1-8). The presentation of the calculations has been improved, and ProSteel calculations will be similarly enhanced in a future release.
For M12 bolts, EuroBeam assumes UK practice of using a 14mm hole and the shear capacity is therefore reduced by 15% [EC3-1-8 3.6(5)]
Other changes and fixes:
- Where a beam had end support conditions <> 5 (1.0L) and one or more intermediate restraints, the C1 factors for the end segments could be calculated incorrectly - fixed
- B/F load expressions gave erratic results where the reaction being brought forward was of a member that had B/F loads - fixed
- B/F load for bearing additional load gave error - fixed
- Edit contents of Print Project list didn't work - fixed
- Project Summary showed unfactored reactions for beams twice instead of unfactored and factored - fixed
- Project Summary showed zero value column loads for never displayed columns (i.e. project with 20 items, tile count set to 12 in Setup, Preferences; load project and last 8 show zeros in Summary until selected and displayed
Release: 1.01b, 23 December 2010
- Any OLE page data was saved if you selected File, Save As, but not with File, Save - fixed
- Register Extensions button in User Setup dialog didn't work on some Vista/Windows 7 systems - fixed.
Release 1.01a, 8 December 2010
Key changes in this release - for a full list select the Miscellaneous, Latest Information option within EuroBeam:
- Hot finished hollow section design and checking has been added. Note that hollow section checking is now limited to S355 as per the 'Blue Book'
- Steel beam lateral torsional buckling calculations have been revised (again) so as to better accord with the new EC3 'Blue Book'. Note that the tabulated figures in the book are not arrived at by using the formula shown in the notes on page A-25
- Twin and triple beam calculations incorrectly showed the shear capacity, web capacity and LTB resistance of a single member - fixed
- The web bearing capacity calculation has been corrected for sections where the flange and web steel stresses are different - the flange steel stress governs the web capacity.
- You can now enter your own C1 factor for columns.
- Where a column is subject to bending, a check is made to ensure that NED/NRD (axial load/axial capacity) <= 0.83 and thus the simplified design method in NCCI SN048b can be used. For a column subject to a high axial load and a very small (but non-zero) moment this requirement may lead to a slightly heavier section being selected than would be the case if another checking method was used. Note that EC3/SN048b don't tell you what offset to assume for loads arising from beam reactions: Arya suggests following BS5950 and using 100mm offset.
- Where a column is subject to bending, only UB, UC, RHS or SHS sections can be selected. This is because NCCI SN048b (simplified column design) excludes the use of circular hollow sections.