Tuesday, September 18, 2007

STEEL: Connection Design Software

Been awhile since we batted this around.

We've been using Descon. To be honest, I'm not thrilled with the
price/performance and their support has been less than stellar. Most of
our problems have been related to installation and licensing issues - it
almost seems as though we're going back to the "bad old days" of
copy-protection schemes that make the software a real pain in the arse
to use.

I also don't like the fact that you can select EITHER LRFD OR ASD and
not both (unless you pay double, at least). Seems to me that with the
present code provisions it's not that big a deal to swing both ways.

On the plus side, it does seem to be fully-featured, it does go by the
latest AISC code provisions, and the sketches it puts out are really
almost detailer-quality.

Is there any sort of alternative out there that anyone would recommend?
Would love it if IES would do a program like this; I still consider
there stuff the best bang-for-the-buck of anything out there, including
their entire line of products.

Regards to all.

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