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!
