FAQ
What is the difference between a pin and a roller support?
The only difference is the way the support is displayed. Internally, the code handles both exactly the same.
What technique is used to determine the results?
DSNWinbeam uses the direct stiffness method to generate a solution. With this method, about 500 nodes are created along the beam, resulting in about 501 beam elements. A set of equations is created describing the stiffness of each beam element. These stiffness equations are combined into a global stiffness matrix with loads and displacements resulting in about 1000 equations each with 1000 unknowns. The equations are then simplified using a banded stiffness technique. A simultaneous equation solution is performed resulting in deflection and rotation values of every node along the beam. The deflections and rotations are them used with the original beam element stiffness equations to calculate shear and moment.
What is an equilibrium error?
The equilibrium error is the difference between the loads and the reactions. It is an indication of how much error is contained in the results. The vertical value is the difference between the sum of the vertical loads and the sum of the vertical reactions. The rotation value is the difference between the sum of the moments about X = 0 and the sum of the reactions about X = 0. If the equilibrium error is significant then you might not have adequate supports or beam stiffness.
Where do I get DSNWinbeam?
DSNWinbeam is available on the Windows Store.