Point load

You can create point load at any point on the beam. The Point Load command creates a point load on the beam. Clicking the point load command brings up the load magnitude table on the right side of the window. In the table, you can input dead load and live load or the combination of both. The unit for the point load is kilo Newton (kN).

Move the mouse onto the beam you which to add point load and the cursor changes into an icon. Click on the mouse left button once to select the beam and the cursor will lock the selected beam. Move the cursor to the right to specify the position of the point load. Click once on the mouse left button to create the point load. Once selected, by default a red dot for the point load will appears on the beam. The point load position always offsets from the left or bottom of the gridline.

For example, you have a beam on grid A, B and C spanning 3000mm, 4000mm respectively. You create a point load on the beam, 5000mm from grid A. Move the cursor towards 5000mm, upon passing 3000mm, the distance begins at the second span from gridline B.

Clicking the mouse left button at 2000mm will give you 5000mm from gridline A.

Figure 8.4: Moving cursor to the right of beam

Figure 8.5: Distance starts at gridline B

Figure 8.6: Point load located at 5000mm from grid A

You can edit the created point load on the table properties. Click on the point load on the beam, when selected the point load will change from red to green colour. To confirm changes made to the point load, press ENTER or click the mouse left button once.

8-128 8.4.2 Uniform Distributed Load

You can create uniform distributed load at any point on the beam.

Uniform distributed load is a load of constant magnitude applied along a length of a beam or and area of a surface.

Click Input Beam UDL command brings up the load magnitude table on the right side of the window. Input dead load and live load in the specified form. The unit for UDL is kilo Newton per metre (kN/m). Move the cursor to the beam and the cursor changes to UDL icon. Click on the beam once to lock on the selected beam. An active box displays the position of the starting point of the UDL either from the bottom or left of the grid. Move the cursor to select the UDL starting position. To define the starting point of the UDL, move the cursor to the specific distance and click once. The active box then displays the distance for the UDL end point. To select the end point, click on the left button once.

Note : Uniform Distributed Load, UDL always offsets from the left or bottom of the grid.

For example, you have a two spans beam separated by grid A, B and C with 3000mm and 4000mm respectively. You want to create a 5 kN/m uniform distributed dead load starting from 2000mm and ending at 4000mm from grid A. Select Input Beam UDL command and define 5kN/m dead load in the table properties. On the selected beam, move the cursor 2000mm from grid A and click once to define the starting point. Move the cursor 1000mm from grid B to select the ending point. Click on the left button once to select. Once created, you can see the UDL magnitudes and positions of the UDL on the key plan layout. By default, the UDL is indicated as red colour hatch on the key plan layout as shown in figure 3. You can change the hatch colour to your preferences, by selecting layer settings command.

Tips : To fully load the beam with UDL, hold SHIFT key and left click on the beam.

Figure 8.7: Defining the starting point 2000mm from grid A.

Figure 8.8: Defining the ending point 1000mm from grid B.

Figure 8.9: Beam with UDL. Starting point is 2000mm from grid A while ending point is 1000mm from grid B.

8-130 8.4.3 General Variable Load

You can create non-uniformly distributed load such as trapezoidal and triangular load using General Variable Load, GVL command. To create general variable load, click GVL command to activate the load magnitudes table. There are 4 entries in the load magnitude section as shown in figure 8.10. The first dead and live load start from the left or bottom of the grids while the second dead and live load end the loads. You can modify any created loading positions using the load position table.

Figure 8.10: Load Magnitude Table Input

Warning : You cannot leave load magnitude entries blank. This generates an infinite value and will create error to the program. Set the entry to zero instead of leaving it blank.

To create different type of loading patterns, you have to specify the load magnitudes accordingly as shown in figure x. In the figure below, X and Y represent the load magnitudes respectively and 0 represents zero/nil. Type 1 and 2 are for triangular loads while type 3 and 4 are for trapezoidal loads input.

Figure 8.11: Type of variable loadings

For example, you have 2 continuous span beams of 3000mm and 4000mm respectively marked by grid A, B and C. You want to create a 2000mm triangular load, 4000mm from grid A. From left side, the triangular dead load increases from 0 to 5 kN/m. Click on the GVL command and input 0 and 5 in the first dead load and second dead load entries respectively. Since there is no live load, input 0 to both first and second live load entries.

Select the beam by clicking once and move the cursor 2000mm from grid A. Click once to define the starting point of the triangular load.

Move the cursor 4000mm from grid A. Note that when the cursor moves further than the beam spanning between grid A and grid B, the dimension display resets and begins at grid B. Now move the cursor 1000mm from grid B and click once to set the load end point.

After creating the load, the load properties are displayed on the key plan layout. DL and LL denote dead load and live load respectively while SO and EO denotes starting offset and ending offset respectively.

8-132 Figure 8.12: Defining the load starting point.

Figure 8.13: Defining the load ending point.

Figure 8.14: Triangular Load created.