BEAMTOOL: Interactive beam analysis for today's student and tomorrow's engineer

BeamTool is a qualitatively powerful beam‐analysis tool with significant educational value. The theory behind BeamTool, ideal for automation, is traditionally mentioned in textbooks but is not usually the approach taught in class because of the amount of work involved. In BeamTool, this classical be...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Computer applications in engineering education 2005, Vol.13 (4), p.293-305
Main Authors: Dempsey, K. M., Kane, J. H., Kurtz, J. P.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Automation
beam analysis
Beams (structural)
Computer simulation
interactive software
Maple
Mathematical models
Microsoft Visual C++
Shear
Stresses
Visual programming languages
Citations: Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:BeamTool is a qualitatively powerful beam‐analysis tool with significant educational value. The theory behind BeamTool, ideal for automation, is traditionally mentioned in textbooks but is not usually the approach taught in class because of the amount of work involved. In BeamTool, this classical beam theory is coupled via a graphical user interface to a symbolic solver. Each problem is solvable both symbolically and numerically, the former with the amount of detail that one finds in the classic design reference Roark's Formulas for Stress and Strain, and the latter with interactively requested shear, moment, slope, displacement, and stress plots. BeamTool is written in Microsoft Visual C++ and runs on Windows. The symbolic solutions are afforded by Maple, which has to be installed on the user's PC. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Comput Appl Eng Educ 13: 293–305, 2005; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com); DOI 10.1002/cae.20054
ISSN:1061-3773
1099-0542
DOI:10.1002/cae.20054