SuperBeam 4

Release 4.52a, 21 Nov 2007

1. The Masonry Strength Calculator has been updated (a little belatedly!) to BS5628-1:2005. Note that default material strengths have changed. Testing is now to BS EN 771-3 which gives a slightly higher measured strength for the same material due to the testing being done in slightly drier conditions. Article explaining this on Celcon website Thus 2.8 becomes 2.9; 3.5, 3.6; 7.0, 7.3; 10.0, 10.4 etc.
2. A number of people have asked whether we could add timber calculations to ProSteel. As explained on our Future of BS449 page, the real answer lies in switching to Eurocodes - a year from now this may be practicable. Meanwhile we have added a new option to SuperBeam which lets you copy timber beam and column calculations into ProSteel as static text pages. To do this, select the timber calculation in SuperBeam, right click on it and select 'Copy Page Source' from the popup menu. In ProSteel select 'Add Project Text page'. The page editor will open: click somewhere in the editing area and press Ctrl+V (paste) to insert the copied text. Press 'Apply', the 'Close' and you will have the formatted calculation. At this point it is of course static text and you cannot update the calculation..
3. Calculated fields (e.g. loads) allow you to incorporate text within expressions to amplify them (e.g. 'avg') which is stripped out when the expression is evaluated. Previously no check was made as to where this text was, so if you inadvertently entered (say) 2N038 instead of 2NO38 the first would be resolved as 2038, the 'N' being stripped out. Now an error is thrown if free text comes within a number.
4. The startup dialog, which is displayed if automatic reload of last project is turned off, now includes an option to reload the last project.

Release 4.51c, 10 Oct 2007

1. Startup dialog was erroneously shown if program started by double clicking on a project file - fixed
2. As the licence/disclaimer is not now shown each time the program is run, we have added a new menu option Help > Show Licence.

Release 4.51b, 29 Sept 2007

1. Bug fixed that could set the wrong INI file location on new Vista installs
2. Fixed bug that gave 'Could not create backup: Save cancelled' error messages when 'Create backup on save' not checked in User Setup > Preferences.
3. The disclaimer/licence screen is now shown when (i) the current user initials are not the same as those entered last time the program was run;. (ii) this is the first time a new release has been run; or (iii) this is the 25th, 50th, 75th ... time the program has been run. You can also view it using a new menu option, Help > Show Licence.
4. A new startup dialog is now displayed if a previous project is not automatically reloaded. Future display of this dialog can be skipped by checking the box in the dialog.
5. UNC program settings INI file names (i..e starting with \\) were lost on exiting program - fixed.
6. A new default steel table now includes the 18 new Corus Advance sections: to use it. If you are updating an existing installation and want these sections you will need to change the steel data file name - go to Configuration > User Setup > File Names and Locations, press the 'Open' button at the end of the line and locate and select file name AdvSteel.dta (on XP systems this file should be in folder C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\SDA and on Vista systems, C:\ProgramData\SDA. The Advance sections include three new UB families, 610x178; 533x312 and 533x165 and additional heavier sections in the 533x210, 457x191, 406x178 and 406x140 UB and 203x203 and 152x152 UC series.
7. A new option in Configuration > User Setup > Preferences lets you decide whether to us the traditional UB, UC and PFC designations or the Advance UKB, UKC and UKPFC ones.
8. The beam span can be changed using the cursor [Up], [PgUp], [Down] and [PgDn] keys.
9. For axially loaded columns, the on-screen summary calculation now shows the load and axial capacity, and the printed calculation shows these instead of the stress ratio.
10. Where a check fails or an actual stress exceeds the permissible, 'FAIL' is now printed instead of '!!!' (follows a comment from a LA checking engineer that the latter could be overlooked too easily)

Release 4.51a, 25 May 2007

• The PDF generation code is now part of the main program so the SDAwPDF2.dll file is no longer used by SuperBeam 4 (similar change are being made to the latest releases of SuperHeat and ProSteel). The generated PDFs now include a bookmark for each report.
• Holding down the [Ctrl] key while moving the mouse wheel increases or decreases the font size as on all modern web browsers.
• SuperBeam now runs on Windows Vista in non-administrator mode
• The Miscellaneous > Catalogue Disk Files option now lists files with clickable links to open
• The Internet > Check SDA Web Site for Updates option now includes a button which lets you choose an alternative download location. The default location has been changed to be compatible with Windows Vista

Release 4.50g, 23 Feb 2007

Two small fixes

1. INI (configuration) file names could be incorrectly retrieved from the registry - fixed.
2. Aspack file compression substituted for UPX.

Release 4.50f, 6 Feb 2007

1. The program file is now code-signed to prevent Windows issuing a potentially unsafe file warning
2. We have made some changes to speed up the program startup and shutdown
3. Help > About now just displays the basic build and licence data instead of the full licence and disclaimer text shown when you first start the program
4. More message boxes have been replaced with the new Vista-style ones showing more information
5. Clicking the bar above the Project Manager buttons hides them - useful if you are just using the PM to select items and reports and have a lot of them.
6. You cannot now delete an beam or column from a project if it is referenced by another item (e.g. BF load)
7. When designing a steel beam, the first section in the table (usually a small CHS) would be used if nothing that met the required width and section types was found. A warning box is now displayed when this happens.
8. If you were using separate DL+LL load entry and brought forward the load from a true cantilever (span=0), the LL would be shown as zero - fixed
9. A little reminder via a London Borough checking engineer: virtually all joists are 47mm wide, not 50mm so you should generally specify a width of 47mm when designing/checking timber members.
10. Flitch beam calculations now show the G7-G10 connection capacities, not just the lowest figure
11. The 'Add to recent documents' option has been dropped from User Preferences.
12. The '99' button in User Setup, Paths & Files is now labelled 'V' and generates the preferred locations for INI files on Windows 2000/XP/Vista systems.
13. Double clicking on the Page Heading Edit dialog grid header line resets the column widths to their original defaults.
14. The default standard notes filename on new installations has been changed to StdNotes.sbps (was StdNotes.xxx where xxx were your initials): this does not affect existing installations.