Span tables, calculators, design software

Span Tables and Calculators 

• American Wood Council – Offers span tables as well as online span, connections, areas and heights calculators, and WoodWorks Design Office software. 
• APA – The Engineered Wood Association – Includes span tables for APA structural use panels. 
• Southern Pine Council – Includes a range of span tables for southern pine joists and rafters. 
• Western Wood Products Association – Online Lumber Technical Guide includes Western lumber span tables for common loading conditions for floor and ceiling joists and rafters, with size and repetitive member adjustments built in. WWPA also offers the popular Lumber Design Suite and Lumber DesignEasy programs, which can enhance the lumber specification process. The programs, which work in concert with Microsoft Excel, assist in calculating horizontal framing (beams and joists), vertical framing (posts and studs) and wood-to-wood shear connections.

Wood Design Software

Building designers have a growing range of software options for the design of all wood buildings as well as hybrid structures of wood and other materials.

• RISA Technologies has expanded its popular structural design software package to include complete wood design capabilities. RISA offers three software programs—RISA-2D, RISA-3D and RISAFloor—all of which incorporate new wood features. RISAFloor and RISA-3D together comprise the “building system” software used to design a complete structure. RISAFloor is used first for gravity analysis & design, and RISA-3D is then used for lateral analysis. (This is where shear walls and diaphragms are analyzed and designed.) RISA-2D is generally used for single component design, including multiple shear walls in a single wall design. For more information:
  • Stream this video to see examples of what the software can do
  • Download this case study to read about how RISA-3D was used for the analysis and design of a 22,040 square foot retail centre
  • View a flyer to find out about RISA's wood features
  • Visit risa.com.
    
    
• Structural Soft develops state-of-the-art structural design software for wood buildings, including hybrid structures. Structural Soft’s BuildingWorx suite of products is based on BIM technology (Physical and Analytical Modeling) with CAD interface for quick modeling -- no time consuming coordinates and joint input. The BuildingWorx platform includes LateralWorx for design of shear walls and tie-downs, whereas FramingWorx offers framing design for vertical loads. LateralWorx and FramingWorx are fully integrated with one physical model and interface. Dead loads are automatically transferred to shear walls and are included in overturning resistance. Framing members are automatically designed for over-strength load cases when supporting discontinuous shear walls. For more information visit www.structuralsoft.com.
  
  • Click here to download a brochure.
  • Click here to view a video demo.
  • Click here to request a free trial.
    
    
• WoodWorks engineering software for wood design (no relation to the WoodWorks non-residential program) is produced by the Canadian Wood Council and, in the U.S., is based on the National Design Specification® (NDS®) for Wood Construction. It includes three modules—Sizer, Shearwalls and Connections—and is being updated with an interactive link to Revit, Autodesk’s Building Information Modeling (BIM) software, to make it easy to determine within the Revit model whether selected wood members will be structurally adequate to resist user applied loads. Click here for more information.