SSAB’s Tubular Design Tools

SSAB has developed a unique tool for designing optimized roof trusses and frames with structural hollow sections. Finding optimal design is made easy and user just needs to input few key parameters; geometry, loads and steel grades. FrameCalc does the rest to either minimize the mass or manufacturing costs.

With FrameCalc it is easy to compare different steel grades in trusses and see the benefits of high strength steels yourself. In FrameCalc it is easy to change steel grade of components group to make comparative calculations. Often it is beneficial to utilize hybrid structure where heavy chords are higher grade to save weight and lighter braces are lower grade to enable smaller weld throat thickness.

The design rules for the structures are based on Eurocode 3 and the equations are selected according to the SSAB Hollow Section Handbooks where user can select to utilize SSAB specific design rules for tubes.

FrameCalc has built-in National Annexes of Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Lithuania, Estonia, Poland, Latvia, Germany and United Kingdom.

FrameCalc can also include 15 minutes fire design without protection or calculate critical temperature for components.

FrameCalc is easy to use tool for SSAB’s customers and designers who can quickly optimize structures which makes it an excellent concept for making quotations. It is also possible to check the concept in more detail with SSAB’s FrameFEM tool.

FrameCalc’s optimized structures provide a good starting point for iterative design process. With automatically generated report it is easy to document the design process with different selections. FrameCalc provides easy way to transfer results to FrameFEM where the structure can be analyzed in more detail. In addition to that it is possible to download models of the optimized structure in CIS and IFC formats and then import the information to 3rd party software.