The Structural Engineering Challenge is a software package that has been designed to make it as easy as possible (and fun) for people learn about and explore how structures work in a laboratory type environment. You are asked to design a series of structures (approximating to real life situations). Each structure must support the required loadings and only use the predefined foundation areas for support. Certain areas of the screen must be avoided (representing obstacles or non-loadbearing soil perhaps). Structures are put together by dragging and dropping members on a rectangular grid on the screen. Structures can be assembled in a few minutes. Many different configurations can be quickly investigated. The program has been designed with students and other interested parties in mind.
The program will load-test your structure in a progressive dynamic way, showing deflected shapes and allowing you to track its progressive collapse. You can view the member loadings and numeric deflection values at any point in the simulation. The efficiency of your design configuration will be determined by calculating how much weight of material would be required to carry the specified loads.
The software should be suitable for design competitions between students to test who can design the structures of the lowest weight.
The program requires Windows 3.1, Windows 95 or later.
486DX processor or better recommended
Some snapshots of the various stages of a typical analysis are shown below. Members shown in red have reached their full load-bearing capacity.
Start of Analysis
First Member Fails
Third Member Fails
Fifth Member Fails.. Structure about to Collapse
Structure has Collapsed
