Software developed by a civil engineering professor and now offered for free performs analysis of thin-walled cold-formed steel structural members to predict load conditions that will make them buckle or deform.
"Its a great innovation," says Jim Crews, a structural engineer at Unarco Material Handling Inc., a rack-building company in Springfield, Tenn. He says it is superior to calculating elements separately. With a "C" section member, for instance, the current practice is to model the lip, flange and web independently, he says. "You dont get the assembly. But with this you get one value for the section of as a whole. Its really quite a neat thing," he adds.