WS BEAM SCHEDULE ver 1.

0, Jan 2013

WS BEAM
SCHEDULE
VERSION 1.0

January, 2013

DISCLAIMER

It is Engineer's responsibility to make sure the results are making sense, he has to check for special cases
like cantilever beams, moment reversal cases etc. This is just a helping aid to save time on beam
schedules and not a replacement of engineering judgment. The developer is not responsible for any
misuse of the tool. Its intended to serve as a time saving tool for structural engineers. By using this tool
you accept all the terms and conditions mentioned here. ©WS BEAM SCHEDULE ver 1.0 Jan, 2013.

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 WS BEAM SCHEDULE ver 1.0, Jan 2013

MAIN FEATURES
WS BEAM SCHEDULE takes data from ETABS, after calculating and evaluating based on your
preferences, it generates reinforcement values. In addition to that it suggest reinforcement
bars for final CAD beam schedule, doing all that in seconds without any space for errors.

1) Easy and clean input by selecting a single report file from ETABS.

2) Automatically selects nearest bar dia for main bars, stirrups and side bars.
Checks for maximum side bars spacing.

3) User can increase reinforcement or specify minimum reinforcement values.

4) Automatically distributes torsion reinforcement for stirrups, side bars, top

and bottom steel .

5) Takes maximum of top reinforcement at end sections of continuing beam spans.

6) User can specify to make top and bottom reinforcement same, top left and top
right same, can select minimum bar dia of main and secondary bars etc.

7) Different types of outputs, can print Area required vs Area provided

comparison with values and percentages, can print suggested bars with
reinforcement values or only the suggested bars for CAD.

8) Takes beam properties from ETABS properties not from beam names so
eliminating the error of dimension difference between ETABS and beam schedule.

9) Eliminating any possibility of error in reinforcement values as it takes the

exact values from ETABS, calculates, evaluate and present a final reinforcement
value including torsion reinforcement.

10) Takes less than 10 seconds to build the schedule and saves more than 70%
of time taken to make manual beam schedule from ETABS.

CONTACT DEVELOPER

Rana Waseem Sarwar

Structural Engineer

Omrania & Associates, Riyadh

waseemrana8@gmail.com

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 WS BEAM SCHEDULE ver 1.0, Jan 2013

Limitations

1‐No. of layers, and no. of bars: In current version, program determines required bar dia only for 1 layer.
No of bars in that single layer is determined by dividing the beam width by 100 and
rounding it to nearest whole number. For example 250mm will generate 3 bars. If
reinforcement value from ETABS is more than the highest bar area defined in Details
sheet by the user multiplied by the number of bars in single layer, program will calculate
the number of bars for the largest bar and report that value in beam schedule
irrespective if those number of bars can be accommodated in beam width or not. It is
Engineer's responsibility to check for these highly reinforced beams and select suitable
layers or reinforcement.

2‐Local axis: Beam local axis 1‐1 must be compatible with each other. For example all x beams must have
their local axis towards right. Similarly all y beams must have their local axis up. For
instance If some x beams have their 1‐1 axis towards right and others towards left for a
single beam of many spans, the reinforcement values for TOPLHS & RHS may be
mirrored i.e. LHS may become RHS and vice versa. To avoid this it is recommended and
also a good modeling habit to always make local axis of elements compatible with each
other. Otherwise you can make use of the option; LHS=RHS in Details sheet to take the
maximum of RHS and LHS.

3‐Hidden data & sheets: This program stores and hides some data in hidden sheets, cells and rows to
calculate results. Please do not unprotect the sheet or delete any part. If you
want to change the code or formats, please contact the developer.

4‐Improvements: Improvements for sheet are under development. Settings and Details sheet will
be merged in next version. Everything in green color will be available in next
version.

5‐Same beam designation at various locations: If you want to use same beam designation at various
locations you can specify different beam names to it and later on select the
beam having largest reinforcement. For example if you have BEAM 3 at 4
different locations in drawing, you can in this program define it as BEAM3A,
BEAM3B and so on.

6‐Report from ETABS: Please select only beams not columns in ETABS. Do not select beams from
different stories. No beam should be overstressed. Always select INPUT and
OUTPUT when making report from ETABS. Do not edit that file. If program finds
any of the above violations, it displays an error message to the user and aborts
the process.

7‐Others: Please read help menu. Currently this version works for SI units (mm).

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HOW TO

STEP_1: Please select the beams (only beams from same story, see Limitations note 6) in
ETABS, go to File menu > Print Tables > Concrete frame design (this option will
be available after making concrete design). Select INPUT & OUTPUT options only
and save the file. Please select mm units in ETABS before creating report.

STEP_2: Open WS BEAM SCHEDULE, enable the macro warning in EXCEL, select BUILD
BEAM SCHEDULE in Beam schedule sheet, select ETABS generated report file.

STEP_3: Go to BEAM NAMES sheet, copy names from BEAM SCHEDULE sheet to here and
change them according to your drawing. Press UPDATE NAMES.

STEP_4: Change the settings in Details and Settings sheets until you arrive at your final
schedule.

Help Menu

1‐Beam labels: Beams in ETABS are identified by a beam label. You can show this by going to view
options and turning on the "Beam labels" option. Right clicking on the beam in ETABS
main screen also shows beam labels in properties window. Obviously these arbitrary
beam labels cannot be the part of final design drawing beam schedule. For this reason,
you have to change the beam names to your drawing beam names. After clicking on
"Build Beam Schedule", copy your beam labels in column "G", goto "Beam Names"
sheet, clear the entries and paste. Enter a beam name against each beam label. Beam
spans will be calculated automatically. There are various methods that can aid you in
writing beam names such as;

i) Print ETABS floor plan with beam labels and CAD floor plan on A3. Keep
them in front of you and start changing the beam names.

ii) Export ETABS floor plans to DXF format with beam caption option.
Please select suitable text height. Now overlay this DXF on your CAD
drawing, provided you have same units, origin and scale etc. Select all in
the drawing, click filter and filter only TEXT layer which was exported
from ETABS, move it little sideward so that when you print, ETABS labels
and CAD beam names do not overlap each other. Print this final drawing
on A3 and start changing the beam names.

2‐Main reinforcement: Main reinforcement values are obtained from ETABS report. Final values
are reported after the following procedure:‐

i) Although ETABS checks the minimum reinforcement, user can still

provide minimum reinforcement ratio in Settings page. User can also

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 WS BEAM SCHEDULE ver 1.0, Jan 2013

provide increase factors in Details sheet. A factor of 10 means, increase

the reinforcement by 10% or multiply by 1.10.

ii) If after increasing the reinforcement value from ETABS by the user
increase factor still remains less than minimum reinforcement provided
by user, it takes the minimum reinforcement. Minimum reinforcement
check is ignored if the ETABS value after increase factors becomes more
than minimum reinforcement provided by user. This is done to avoid
too conservative values. It is recommended to make minimum
reinforcement check equal to zero and increase the reinforcement by
some factors. You may even use ETABS values as is without any increase
but in some cases it may be desirable to increase the reinforcement to
cater for future changes or overload at site, redistribution of moments
etc.

iii) Torsion reinforcement (if any) is divided in perimeter of the beam

according to each side share. All sides of beam will have different share
of torsion reinforcement according to their length divided by total
perimeter of beam. Part of total torsion reinforcement that will go to
either top or bottom of the beam will be added to main steel at top or
bottom. Note (i & ii) will be applicable to this total value. It is Engineer's
responsibility to make sure that this reinforcement is at the perimeter
of beam and enclosed by ties as per code requirements. Other torsion
distribution options will be available in next version.

iv) You can make TOP LHS = RHS in Details sheet. It will take maximum
of LHS and RHS. You can also make use of the option TOP = BOTTOM to
make top and bottom steel same. If you select this option then TOP
LHS=RHS is automatically checked and maximum of all three i.e. TOP
LHS, RHS and BOTTOM is selected.

v) You can specify minimum bar area for main bars in Details sheet.
Program will automatically select the bar designation based on this
area. For example you may want to restrict minimum dia of bar equal to
T16. This option will not affect the TOP MIDDLE.

vi) Program automatically takes the maximum of RHS of previous span

and LHS of next span of the same beam assuming beam spans are from
left to right. (See note 2 in Limitations.)

vii) Current version does not check min or max bar spacing within a
layer and other code specific requirements.

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3‐Top Middle or Secondary Reinforcement: Top middle reinforcement for a beam is taken from ETABS
results. In some situations beam can have considerable amount of
reinforcement at top middle of a beam after analysis from ETABS. So this
program takes that original value and then checks user provided options such
as:‐

i) Minimum reinforcement ratio in Settings sheet does not applies to

Top Middle reinforcement.

ii) TOP middle reinforcement is increased by factor in Details sheet.

iii) Smallest bar is chosen based on bars defined in Details sheet. Min
bar area for main bars option in Details sheet does not affect TOP
MIDDLE.

iv) If top middle reinforcement is less than some %age of bottom steel
as defined in Details sheet, it is increased to satisfy that %age. This %age
is multiplied to the final bottom steel value (after min reinforcement
and increase factors checks.) This may be required by codes in seismic
detailing section. If settings in ETABS are configured properly, ETABS will
automatically take care of the minimum reinforcement values at this
section according to seismic provisions. Otherwise you can always
specify some percentage to make sure TOP MIDDLE section has at least
this percent of capacity of BOTTOM section. There is no similar check to
compare with TOP LHS or RHS at this time in current version.

v) In current version there is no check on the diameter difference of

bars between top middle and bottom or top LHS or RHS. In some cases
if for example top LHS = T25 bar you may want to specify top middle
bars not more than 2 bar dia difference.

vi) Enforce top LHS=RHS and Enforce TOP = BOTTOM does not affect
TOP MIDDLE bars.

vii) If beam length is very small, TOP MIDDLE bars are kept same as that
of top LHS and RHS or in other words, top reinforcement is continued
throughout the span. This limit should be checked by the Engineer.

4‐Stirrups: i) Av/s and At/s values are taken from ETABS report, increased by the
factors specified by user (See note iii). No minimum check is performed.
It is assumed that either user will check the minimum requirement or he
as configured settings in ETABS properly to take care of this check.

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 WS BEAM SCHEDULE ver 1.0, Jan 2013

ii) No. of stirrups are increased to 2 after a certain width in Settings

sheet. If beam is very wide Engineer may increase number of stirrups.
Currently in this version, program checks only for maximum 2 stirrups.

iii) Reinforcement increase factor in Details sheet is applied to the

combined (Main shear Av/s + Torsion shear At/s).

iv) It is Engineer's responsibility to make sure that stirrups should be at

the perimeter of beam and should be closed for torsion. An additional
note may also be provided in beam schedule. In current version,
program reports the number of stirrups required combined for shear
and torsion but does not add a note in beam schedule for this torsion
condition. This should be done by the Engineer.

5‐Side bars: Torsion reinforcement values are taken from ETABS report. Side bars calculated according
to the share of side faces of beam divided by total perimeter (as in note 6‐iii).
This value is then increased by user increase factors. No minimum check reinforcement
check is performed on this value. Maximum spacing between bars is restricted to the
value specified by user in Settings page. Final bars shown in beam schedule are reported
for each face. For example 3‐T12 means each face (3‐T12 on left and 3‐T12 on right
face).

6‐Decimal places: Decimal places in Settings page affects all reinforcement values except shear Av/s
values.

7‐Printing: There are 3 options; FOR ENGINEER, FOR CAD and AREA REQUIRED. Clicking on each option
gives you print preview of only that portion. You can select print settings and print the
desired portion of beam schedule.

i) FOR ENGINEER portion has bar designation with reinforcement

values. Engineer can re‐check the bar dia based on the reinforcement
values.

ii) FOR CAD contains only bar designations. This option can be used to
give final print to CAD for final drawing beam schedule.

iii) AREA REQUIRED option gives you a comparison between area

provided and area required and the percentage difference. This can be
used later on after a project to check beam capacities for any changes.

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