Use of MS Excel as a Design Tool in a 90-Story Reinforced Concrete Building
Publication: Structures Congress 2006: 17th Analysis and Computation Specialty Conference
Abstract
Most structural engineers use Microsoft (MS) Excel in the office on a daily basis. Using a 90-story reinforced concrete building currently under construction as an example, this presentation will illustrate some more unique ways in which Excel can be used as a very powerful tool in structural design. The tools shown are focused around some simple code written in Visual Basic for Applications (VBA). Please note that the author is a structural engineer, not a programmer, and has no formal VBA training. The code is actually quite simple for any engineer to pick up, especially since Excel will "record" most commands for the user to give a flavor for the syntax of the code. This presentation can be divided into four main sections: (1) an engineer's introduction to VBA, (2) custom functions in concrete design, (3) sample "tools" created in Excel and applied to a 90-story reinforced concrete building, and (4) appendices containing sample code and other useful information about VBA.
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Information
Published In
Structures Congress 2006: 17th Analysis and Computation Specialty Conference
Pages: 1 - 11
Copyright
© 2006 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Published online: Jun 20, 2012
ASCE Technical Topics:
- Building design
- Buildings
- Commercial buildings
- Computer programming
- Computer software
- Computing in civil engineering
- Concrete
- Concrete construction
- Concrete structures
- Construction (by type)
- Construction engineering
- Construction management
- Design (by type)
- Engineering fundamentals
- Engineering materials (by type)
- Facilities (by type)
- Materials engineering
- Reinforced concrete
- Spreadsheets
- Standards and codes
- Structural design
- Structural engineering
- Structures (by type)
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