Please post below with any suggestions you may have so that we can improve our calculator! Also if you have any general comments (positive or negative) then don't be afraid to let us know!
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Its easy to use. But it would be better if it would consider cross section area of beam. Please try to implement it.
I agree! We are working on it as we speak so stay tuned — This will be available in the PRO calculator!
Is it possible for the calculator to show the calculations being done besides just showing the end result/solution?
Sorry but the calculator works in a different way to how most people would do it by hand and it is quite difficult to display equations as it works. If you’re not understanding something maybe visit our tutorials page. I’m getting the feeling that a lot of people want to know how the calculator is coming up with the answer and how it came to that answer…
This site is awesome, the only thing that I can think of that it needs is the ability to insert a “hinge” condition at a specific point along the beam.
AMAZING
All in all a great tool. However, I think you should implement horizontal point loads extending out of the beam. Although this would not affect the shear, it would affect the moment diagrams. An addition of a vertical beam and a horizontal point load would be great.
Any chance you could add a field that displays the functions of V(x) and M(x) within the respective regions of the graph?
This is a great suggestion Jake! Unfortunately this is probably going to take a lot of work…we might implement it in the future though! Thanks!
Please show all calculations
Hi I’m trying to use the calculator but my loads are only going +ve the -ve is not not working is it the same with all of you? I didn’t download the programme is that the reason why?
***RESOLVED – 22 Nov 2013***
Hi Taps. Loads seem to be working fine. I don’t believe there was ever a problem. Please see the photo on facebook here to confirm:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=182740108595560&set=a.182740105262227.1073741828.182320028637568&type=1&theater
Please let me know if you still think there is a problem. Thanks.
this calculator is not able to sketch the BMD of indeterminate structures.
so please start it for indeterminate also
calculator is awesome..
thank u.
Hi Jayram. Thanks for the feedback! We are aware of this as the calculator was designed to handle simple problems only. Indeterminate problems are impossible to solve using conventional methods. So the calculator stops you from entering an indeterminate problem. More advanced techniques (like superposition) are needed to solve indeterminate problems and these are not easy to program. We may add this in the future if enough people are interested…
The calculator is unable to compute correct support reactions when you add a uniformly varying load across a beam.
Please work on that stuff.
Otherwise this calculator is AWESOME !
Hey Amol, could you please specify under what conditions that you calculated it as being wrong? I tested it for a 10m beam simply supported with a 0-10kN/m distributed load that spans the full length of the beam. i.e a triangular distributed load. The reactions were correctly calculated as 16.67kN and 33.33kN. The working is as follows:
Resultant Force from Distributed Load = Fr = 10 x 10 x 0.5 = 50kN
This force acts at 6.6666m (2/3) from the first reaction.
Sum Moments at first reaction = 0 = 6.6666*-50 + By(10) –> By = 33.333
By + Ay = 50 kN
Therefore Ay = 50 – 33.33 = 16.67kN
Please let us know if this clears it up. Otherwise please send us the details of the incorrect values.
Thanks for your feedback and we’re glad your enjoying our BMD calculator!
Sam
If problems were to exist it would probably be due to the introduction of moments, as this area of the calculator wasn’t tested as much as the rest. The calculator has been used around 50,000 times so I wouldn’t expect such a fundamental error to occur. That’s not to say that there won’t be errors though! There might be errors because the calculator may not be able to handle some specific conditions which we have forgotten about. The purpose of this page was for people to find these errors so we could refine the code. There may also be graphical glitches/bugs with the shear force diagram (SFD), bending moment diagram (BMD) or free body diagram (FBD).
Hi. Your equations and formulas tutorial doesn’t seem to have working links to the shear and bending moment equations. This would be really useful.
Thanks
We will be finishing the tutorials and equations in the coming month or so. They will not be formulas based on the calculator, but rather generic formulas that can be applied to most questions you might get.
In the meantime, there are some sites out there that already teach the relevant formula for each beam type, so try searching them.
Hope this helps,
Sam
***RESOLVED – 30 Nov 2013***
Tutorials completed…for now…
Any plans to finish off the tutorial. I enjoyed the clarity of your explanation of how to do the shear force diagrams. I would be interested in seeing your explanation for the bending moment diagrams.
Hi Gourgos,
Sorry we have been quite busy but we will get to this as soon as possible. I’m glad to hear you found the SF explanations helpful
Thanks,
Sam
***RESOLVED – 30 Nov 2013***
Tutorials are complete…for now…
Very good and easy to use. It would really help if you had a qualitative analysis of indeterminate beams. Being able to add 2 fixed supports and just seeing what the BMD looks like without the figures would be awesome.
If you can, you should have a way to display the slopes of the lines. Otherwise good work. ‘Twas quite helpful.
Hi Frank. Thanks for the feedback. My advice is to find the slope using rise/run. The diagrams should give enough info to find the rise and the run of the sloped line. Any engineer should be able to do this haha but I understand that this site may take away a lot of the thinking you have to do. It is definitely possible to add..we’ll keep your suggestion in mind. Thanks again
A few people have emailed me suggesting that it would be great if the calculator could show them the shear force and bending moment at specific points along the beam. For instance, if the question asks you to evaluate the SF or BM at a certain location then it might be difficult to know the exact value by looking at the diagrams generated (especially if the diagram isn’t linear).
In future we will include a function where the user can add a point of evaluation. At this point, the SF and BM will be clearly marked on the diagrams like other points of interest (such as supports and loads). We’ve noticed that there are many returning visitors who depend on the calculator so keep your eyes open — this feature will be added soon…
***RESOLVED – 30 Nov 2013***
This feature has now been added. Click the “Add Evaluation Point” button to add extra points of interest for evaluation in the SFDs and BMDs.
Also, an edit function would be helpful so that we wouldn’t have to delete our inputs if they’re incorrect.
Sean, the calculator had an edit function in one of our earlier versions. It was fully functional, however there were some issues and it required a significant amount of coding to fix, so we scrapped it altogether and decided to keep it simple — Why? It isn’t difficult or time consuming to delete a load and re-add it compared to editing. We concluded that the amount of effort and coding required for the edit function wasn’t worthwhile.
Could you set it up such that it could accommodate for 8 distributed loads?
It is possible and it would not be difficult, however it would take time to code. If there is more demand for more than 4 of each type of load then the calculator’s capacity will be increased in future. At the moment we think the capacity is suitable for the majority of users.
Thanks for the feedback Sean.
Could you please make an exception? I really need it for this particular problem. Thanks.
Sean, we’re really sorry but we don’t have the time at the moment to make such widescale changes to the calculator. Like I said, it would take some time to code – time which the developers (Sam and I) don’t have at the moment. In December we’ll probably be making many improvements to the calculator so we’ll definitely take your suggestion on board. Sorry for the inconvenience in the meantime.
Hey even I need the calculator for 8 point loads along with a distributed load. Could you please enhance the calculator? It would be a great help.
This is becoming a pretty common request from users. We’re really considering it at the moment…the problem is we have limited time these days. We’ll get back to you soon…
OMG I LOVE THIS SITE SO FUCKING MUCH
***RESOLVED – 17 Sept 2013***
Getting an error in the BMD diagram at the point where I add a Moment.
The diagram shows the BMD curve in the opposite direction. Could you help on this.
***RESOLVED – 17 Sept 2013***
Thanks for the feedback Akshay. Very well spotted. You are correct – when a moment is added the BMD curve adds/subtracts a vertical line in the wrong direction. Thank you for picking up the error. This has now been fixed. Let us know if you spot anything else. Cheers
Hi Paul,
I’m getting the results correct now. Thanks for considering the request and providing a quick solution on that.
Best Regards,
Akshay
Really good work guys. I love the calculator. Helped me out a lot! Thanks for all your hard work!