University Student: Program Review Request

Ryan, hello!

At first, welcome to a forum! I have seen your document (in version Mathcad 15 M010) and at me a lot of overlapping of the text on formulas in the document. In what version Mathcad you work? Also fonts in the inserted graphic files (see below) are not correctly displayed. I think that you need to correct/finish it. Also, I want to notice that earlier libraries were accessible to users Mathcad (at its purchase) as: "Mathcad Civil Engineering Library", "Mathcad Mechanical Engineering Library" (screenshot attached). But now instead of them it is offered to use firm Knovel content (including templates of documents Mathcad).

Ryan Kendall wrote: Hello everyone, This is my first post on the forums and I want to go ahead and thank everyone for participating in discussions here, because you surely do it on your own acord. I've read many threads that have come up through google when I search for how to do something in MathCAD, and I was hoping to receive some feedback from the community. A little about what I aim to do; I'm a senior in the Civil Engineering program at UCF and am trying to design MathCAD programs/worksheets to solve problems in my two current structure courses in order to gain a higher understanding of the material as well as demonstrate my ability to use programs effectively to potential employers. The two courses I'm refering to are Reinforced Concrete Structures and Steel Structures. I'm developing these worksheets to serve as potential procedures to help me study for exams as well as to go into a "chest" incase they were to come in handy in the future. The semester just started and the attached worksheet is my first attempt at such a file. My concrete course went over an example of the sort and I worked to produce this worksheet and quickly realized that there must have been a better way to program or formulate certain equations. It is my hope that I may receive valuable advice as to how to refine these worksheets as I continue through the course. My request to the forum, is to review my worksheet and give me your constructive insight into how I might improve the worksheet. In this case, and hopefully all the worksheets I create, I will attempt to produce the highest quality possible and your insight will be invaulable. For reading my post this far, as well as any potential responses, I want to thank everyone for taking their time to help me out. I've developed all the figures and diagrams myself in AutoCAD and expect to put a great amount of effot into these worksheets. Specific to this worksheet: "Singly Reinforced Concrete Beam Section" There are a couple of areas of interest I have, that i know there must be an easier way. The first is when I am developing an expression to calculate the Cross-Sectional area of a bar of rebar for an entire cross section of a reinforced concrete beam. The rebar input needs to be the "#, or number" of rebar. each number has a specific diameter which gives it a specific cross sectional area. You then simply multiply the amount of bars by the area of one rebar to receive the "As" value, or the total area of steel. The cross sectional area of each rebar comes from a table, the image that is attached to the post. I found it difficult to bring this table in, and was forced to use the "max" function with a bunch of "if" statements in order to produce the results needed. Aesthetically, this approach isn't acceptable, as my equation travels three page widths to the right. This is my main concern of the worksheet, and I value your opinions to how to do this more efficiently. Thank you again to anyone who would like to help me out, I look foward to your responses. -Ryan Kendall

One of the great advantages of Mathcad is vectors and arrays. Rather than sort through a bunch of if statements, use Rebar_number as an index to a vector. (If you have the table as electronic text, it can be pasted into Mathcad as a vector, saves typing!)

The second point I'd like to make is proper use of units. You're writing units of stress as "lb/in^2" but Mathcad shows "lb" as a unit of mass. The equivalent unit of force is "lbf" (= 1 lb *32.2 ft/sec^2). For stress, you have psi (in version 14 and above there is ksi (1 ksi = 1000 psi.) If you do force/Area you get psi, not lb/in^2.

See attached!

Okay, so i put together a new worksheet incorporating various suggestions from everyone. I tried to put descriptions next to my equations and make the units more applicable. I decided to use mike's use of an embeded excel component to produce my steel areas and I used wayne's example of the beta constant. His equation was much neater.

The last issue I have with this worksheet is my final nominal moment calculated at the bottom of the page. I'm multiplying a kip * in and i would like either kip*in or kip*ft as my output when i want to display the moment. in the worksheet, i'm using a custom us system with length changed to inches and force changed to kip. For some reason, the moment is being converted to (lb*in^2) / s^2.

I've looked through my mathcad book and cannot figure out how to change this value to display what i want. any suggestions?