Web-based tutor for interactive design of single-span and continuous steel beams

The senior author developed the approach of interactive computer-aided design of steel structures on the first-generation personal computers in mid-1980s. The goal of this research is to develop web-based courseware to complement undergraduate teaching of structural steel design. Java Applets are being developed for interactive design of steel beams, compression members, beam-columns, connections, and plate girders. In this article, an example applet, called Beam Tutor, is presented for design of single-span and multi-span steel beams. It can design a variety of beam types such as simply-supported, cantilever, propped, fixed, and multi-span continuous beams subjected to a multitude of loadings including linearly varying load according to two different codes of the American Institute of Steel Construction: Allowable Stress Design (ASD) and Load and Resistance Factor Design (LRFD) Specifications. With the help of the web-based courseware, students can find answers to many what-if scenarios quickly. (c) 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Comput Appl Eng Educ 20: 383389, 2012