On 9 Mar 2006 01:56:21 -0800 wrote :
I wondered about that.Aparently a superbeam printout is OK for
bulding control.
But surely garbage-in, garbage-out.

Absolutely: SuperBeam is a classic GIGO program. In the early
versions the disclaimer said "If you don't know what you're doing
this program will help you design dangerous structures even more
quickly" but on legal advice I had to delete this - some people have
no sense of humour!

Barely a week goes by without me talking someone out of buying
SuperBeam - they seem to believe that buying a copy will enable them
to dispense with the services of their structural engineer even
though they know next to nothing about the subject. Re Tim's comment
about the gap in knowledge in filling in the data this is deliberate:
if you need your hand held here please don't use the program.

The structural engineer analyses the load on the structure as well
as analysing the structure itself.
How is that sorted out if you use superbeam for building control ?

First and foremost it is of course the responsibility of the person
doing the design. But back in my BCO days one had to continually
remember not to get so hung up on checking what had been submitted
that you failed to notice the omissions. The SuperBeam disclaimer
says

"... Do NOT use this program unless you have enough knowledge and
experience to correctly assess the loads on members, the suitability
of the proposed construction, the overall performance of the
structure and the reasonableness of the program output ..."

and all these things matter.

--
Tony Bryer SDA UK 'Software to build on' http://www.sda.co.uk
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