Can I get some engineers to test this...?

[Trigger]

About 6 months ago, I decided that I wanted to try and write a reinforced concrete cross section analysis program. Since then, I have slowly developed the program in my spare time, and at this point, it is fairly far along. I was hoping that some engineers could test the program for me and give me feedback. I am hoping people can tell me what they like about the program, what they don't like, what they would like to see added, etc. Additionally, as I currently work in stormwater, I do not have any other programs (nor does the company I work for) that I can validate the results with. I have not been able to find another free program that performs the same calculations either. The results look reasonable to me, but with my 1 year of experience in stormwater (though I did emphasize in structures in college), let's just say I would like a few other opinions.

The program is posted here:

http://atengsoft.zxq.net/XSAnalysis.html

Although I have built in a lot of exception handling, you can definitely crash the program if you try. I would like people to try using it how they normally would (i.e. don't go out of your way to try and discover ways to crash it) and give me advice, suggestions, and hopefully help validate the results. The program is and will be completely free. It is still a work in progress, but I have reached a point where I would like other peoples' opinions before I proceed much further. There is a help file included with the program that is a little out-dated, but should be enough for people to get the hang of it.

 

[MA_PE]

you should post this in the structural engineering forum.

It looks interesting and if I find some free time, I'll check it out.

Just curious, what motivated you to write this program?

 

[Trigger]

Just curious, what motivated you to write this program?

I took a course in college on seismic design of reinforced concrete, and as part of the course (though I went a little beyond the scope of the assignment), I wrote a program in Excel that generated axial force-moment diagrams for rectangular and circular sections by slicing the section into layers. I ldidn't touch the Excel program for a few months after I got out of school, but after I learned some Visual Basic so that I could write some stormwater related programs for my company, I decided to try and implement the Excel code in Visual Basic...and it has kind of ballooned since then. I keep thinking of new things that would be neat to add, and as I refined the program, I wanted to start adding more capabilitiies. It started as only being able to analyze rectangular sections, then I put some time in to add circular sections, then I spent time researching triangulation and meshing approaches, and added that capability. That allowed me to then implement the custom section. I had to learn a heck of a lot, from programming to meshing to analysis theories, etc., in order to write this. So I think that was the main motivation...it has kept me thinking and learning. Just a nice little personal project to keep me on my toes. It also helped to fill some down time at work.

 

[Trigger]

Is there a separate structural forum here? All of the civil disciplines seem to be grouped together under this forum.

 

[kevo_55]

This area is close enough.

http://engineerboards.com/index.php?showforum=12

You can post it in there.

 

[Trigger]

This area is close enough.

http://engineerboard...hp?showforum=12

You can post it in there.

Sounds good. I wasn't sure if that was supposed to be kept as a forum just for the exam. Thanks.