The key change in ProSteel 5 is, of course, the use of
BS5950-1: 2000 in all the calculation routines within the program.
There are a large number of other changes too:
-
Adobe Acrobat PDF file output option: When printing you can now
choose whether to send the output to your printer or have it written to
a PDF file. This will be particularly useful if you need to email a
copy of your calculations to someone.
-
Hollow section support: Steel beam and column design options now let
you choose hot rolled hollow sections as well as check them
-
Web update option: For the period of your update cover you will
(assuming that you have Internet access) be able to download the latest
release instead of waiting for your update disk to arrive
-
Standard note library: Store all those standard notes you put at the
end of your calculation sheets and recall them with a couple of mouse
clicks.
-
The beam load description field has been increased to 20 characters
(on printouts, column widths are now adjusted to suit the maximum
length of data entered in each column)
-
Standard load descriptions (such as 'o.w.', 'wall', floor'): Just
pick them from a drop down list - your decide the content
-
If you enter a load and forget to enter the start and/or end
positions, default values of 0 and L (part UDLs and VLs) and L/2 are
entered - a warning message is displayed to tell you that this has been
done. Previously the blank field was taken as 0 which meant that the
load was ignored.
-
The height of the beam load edit dialog can now be changed:
increasing it shows more loads or make the notes pane larger, depending
on the page selected.
-
For non-hollow steel beams a check is now made on the unstiffened
web capacity at supports. If the reaction is greater than this, the
required stiff bearing length is calculated. If this cannot be
provided, web stiffeners will be required (this is highly unlikely in
domestic scale building structures)
-
Steel bearing plate thicknesses are now calculated using the plate
projection beyond the stiff bearing length across the section (taken as
t + 1.6r + 2T). This will give a slightly greater
plate thickness. (changed following query raised by checking
authority)
-
Bug fixed that caused a crash if you tried to calculate a beam
bearing plate with a negative reaction at R1 (due to load on cantilever
extension of beam)
-
The steel check section dialog now remembers last sort order
-
For stanchions you can now enter separate effective lengths for the
major and minor axes.
-
Where a stanchion includes moments calculated from applied
reactions, a section schematic is now printed to make it clear which
reaction is which.
-
Where a menu item has a toolbar equivalent the toolbar icon is shown
on the menu
-
The Project Manager can now be accessed from the keyboard:
-
The 'Combine load and section calculations' option has been removed
from the Project Details dialog. Beam loads and steel beam calculations
are now always shown in one window,
-
The 'keep windows on screen at all times' options have been removed
from the Project Details dialog. When you close a window it is now
always closed, not minimised. The old arrangement was a hangover from
DOS days and has been redundant since the new style Project Manager was
added
-
We are now using UPX compression instead of Shrinker which makes the
main program file much smaller - now only 600K!
