Materials

Mac & PC

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Materials

The material edit dialog

To get a material edit dialog from a blank new cross-section description:

  1. Click on the “Add” item under Materials on the main menu. This will add a material to the materials list.
  2. Click on this new material in the list to select it.
  3. Click the “Edit” item under Materials on the main menu. This will open the materials edit dialog with a material description that is all default values.

Near the top of this dialog is a combination list box labeled “Code =” and displaying the selection “Properties as described”. The other possible selections from this list include various standard design codes such as ACI-318. If a code is selected a second combination list box appears listing various clauses in that code. However all the other information in the dialog is editable only if the first selection is “Properties as described”.

Part-way down the dialog is a further combination list box labeled “Material kind =” that offers the alternatives:

  • Steel that yields
  • Concrete
  • Other

If “Steel that yields” is selected a number edit box labeled “tensile yield strain =” appears.

If “Concrete” is selected a number edit box labeled “Ultimate compressive strain =” appears. The ultimate strength computation “method” depends on at least one material being of this kind. (For the meaning of “method” see “Load cases”.)

Further down the dialog is a button labeled “Edit stress/strain table”. This leads to a table edit dialog for a table that has two columns; one for strain values and the other for the corresponding stress values. The explicit algorithm in the main computation facilities can work with any stress/strain relationship. (See “Load cases” – “Explicit algorithm”).

The values in the strain column of this table must be in increasing order. Also if there are both negative and positive values zero strain must be included.

With any other selection from the code selection list all this information is determined automatically and is not editable although additional number edit boxes appear appropriate to the particular clause in the particular code with labels such as “Specified compressive strength fc’ =”.