Technical explanation

Load Combinations.
The program will always design for all load combinations. At the end of the design it wil
highlight the critical combination. Member force results from each load combination during
the Building Analysis procedure are listed in a table 1.

Table 1
Load
Loading combination used in the Building Analysis
Combination
N Axial force result from the load combination displayed on the same line
M1 Bending moment in local 1 direction (bending around Dir 2 axis)
M2 Bending moment in local 2 direction (bending around Dir 1 axis)

In the design procedure, member force results from each load combination will be tried one
by one. The critical combination as figure 1 will be identified and used to select the
reinforcement area. The combination 1 G + Q * F is the most critical.

Figure 1: Critical Combination load

After the determination of the column reinforcement, Column Interaction Diagrams can be
prepared. Using the interaction diagrams can be drawn using the “column analysis” button.

Column Axial
Capacity

Column Critical
Axial Load
Load combination Dir 2 Dir 1

The red line is the Dir 1 column capacity and the blue line Dir 2. Also plotted are the top
and bottom moments determined during the analysis of the building for each of the
combinations. The horizontal red line indicates the axial load limit determined by the code.

It can be seen that the design moments are very close to the moment capacity in dir 2.

Example 1:

Use 6T12 for load combination 1 G + Q * F

The max Dir 2 is 90kN.m but the M2 is 65.4kN.m so the design is ok.
Example 2:

Use 4T12 for load combination 1 G + Q * F

The max Dir 2 is 82kN.m but the M2 is 65.4kN.m so the design is ok.