Excel…. Version control…. Git the hell out of here!

Version tracking Excel VBA code with git…. I’m not talking about uploading your spreadsheets to GitHub and calling it a day…. boring, we can do a bit better than that obviously! I’m talking about extracting your actual VBA code from your spreadsheets and tracking changes to that code using git. Well, that’s a pain you might say, extracting/exporting the code modules from Excel manually each time you make a change. Well, I couldn’t agree more, it would be a major…

Functions for calculating the New Zealand seismic coefficient Cd(T) and associated parameters (Part 1)

As exciting as it is calculating seismic coefficients (it’s not), you get sick of doing it by hand and implementing it time after time in various spreadsheets. Theres nothing worse than seeing someone calculate their seismic coefficient wrong on page 2 of their calculations as well, though it always gives me a laugh that they went on and did 403 pages of calculations based on the wrong seismic load…. laugh it happens.

Moment coverage, do it, and do it right (please!)

Something that really irks me when checking others concrete designs, is the apparent lack of knowledge surrounding moment or tension reinforcement development. Along with the concept of moment coverage diagrams to prove that all regions of your member have sufficient moment strength. Isn’t this the point of designing the beam….. Arrgghhh!

Stuff I should have known earlier … shortcuts…

The other day I learned a useful shortcut in windows, being that the Windows key + SHIFT + S opens up the snipping tool in windows, very handy. This is something I always used to open manually with a search for via the start menu, very cumbersome right. This got me thinking, what other things am I ashamed to admit I found out way after the rest of the world apparently did, and way after I’d like to admit after…

Metric for the win…

I’m not a fan of the imperial system when it comes to engineering calculations, I make no secret of this. Nothing is easier than multiples of ten in my mind, it just makes sense. As opposed to a 12 here and a 3 there, and the whole mass and weight thing which I didn’t even realise existed…..

Doing some cool stuff with JavaScript in Bluebeam (Part 2)

In part 1 we added a single line of JavaScript, it was basic. But hopefully that single line of JavaScript provided some inspiration on how you could make other stamps you might create dynamic, and less specific. In this post we’ll do another example, but this time I’ll show you how to use some data input by the user when you place a stamp to do some calculations using JavaScript.

Drawing Reinforcement in Excel…Really (Part 3)

In Part 2 we covered the functions for creating coordinates for accurately representing shear reinforcement (stirrups and links) using an XY scatter chart in Excel. In this third and final part, we’ll cover the functions for outputting the minimum lengths of stirrups or links. As mentioned in the first part in this series, estimating the total length of bars and hence weights can be a tedious boring process. These functions take out boring bits, but it’s still not ‘exciting’.

Drawing Reinforcement in Excel…Really (Part 1)

One thing that irks me about a lot of spreadsheets I’ve seen created over the years is the fact that the inputs for something that can be visualised are hidden behind a few numbers in cells. No visual representations of the calculations are given. With an overarching reliance on the user to mentally complete the picture of their design inputs (and sometimes outputs) within their minds.

To minimum or not to minimum, that is the question?

Minimum steel, love it or hate it, we have minimums for a reason even if it seems like overkill sometimes given that we may have very low demands. This post will demonstrate why (I hope) we are required to comply with these arbitrary limits. Usually I’m going into these posts with only the theoretical background of why something exists, but hopefully once we get into it this theory can actually be demonstrated.

Using Mathematica to save the world

Well, one person’s world of torsion anyway… In this post I’ll show how to use Mathematica to check some derivatives of torsion relationships. Mathematica is an analysis/computational tool by Wolfram. Now if you had to pony up the dollars for it you’d be out a few thousand dollars, but as it happens I’m cheap and it’s free on Raspberry Pi’s Raspbian operating system. Yes it’s linux based, but don’t let that turn you off, it’s so simple to setup anyone…