HERA has launched a practical design tool for engineers, academia, and practitioners to help provide intuitive insight into the design of steel-concrete composite beams with web openings. 

 

It is part of one of our recent projects, where we’ve developed an exciting stand-alone Windows application, called HERA-CompWebPen.  

Mar202024

This software is developed to analyse and design composite beams featuring web penetrations offering a range of features to handle composite beams with variable slab widths and thicknesses, as well as web penetrations with different sizes and shapes – with or without stiffeners. It is fully compliant with the regulations outlined in the Australian/New Zealand Standard 2327: 2017 Amd1 2020 (AS/NZS 2327) to ensure designs meet applicable standards.  

 

How does the software work?

This software is integrated with HERA’s existing web-based composite beam design software and helps streamline the process of inputting beam data and loading via a user-friendly interface.  

Basic beam data and loading are currently input to HERA-CompWebPen via an XML file produced by the above-mentioned software. The results of calculations for the beam without web penetrations (e.g., actions along the beam, stud capacity) are read from a file generated by HERA’s web-based software (although some of this data can be overridden and directly entered by the user into HERA-CompWebPen).  

Subsequently, the location, size, and shapes of web penetrations are introduced by the HERA-CompWebPen’s user and saved (along with the relevant data from the xml file) into a new locally stored data file.  

This intuitive tool helps provide comprehensive results while transparently presenting the relevant clauses and equations from the standard.  

 

Supporting our members and the construction industry in Aotearoa

To assist with promoting engineering best practices, we intend to make our software available at a highly cost-effective rate compared to its existing counterpart. 

A comprehensive verification plan has been conducted to provide a high degree of confidence that: 

  • The user interface operates as expected. 
  • XML input from the HERA web app is correctly handled. 
  • CompWebPen calculations correctly implement AS/NZS 2327. 
  • Software fully and accurately incorporates the relevant provisions for various types of beams with different web opening sizes and shapes. 
  • The user documentation is provided correctly and completely. 

Interested to know more? 

Please contact our Structural Engineer Maryam Hasanali if you have any questions about this software.