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Released November 19, 2014 with Design Office 9, SR-2
Important Note – These are descriptions to changes implemented in version 9.2 and may not reflect current program behaviour.
For version 9.1 only, when a wall stud was selected in column mode, Sizer would crash. This has been corrected.
The following corrections have been made to the notch design improvements introduced with version 9.
When an interior notch does not meet the strict criteria to ensure stiffness (notch depth is less than 1/6 of beam depth and notch length less than 1/3 of beam depth), the program previously issued a design failure warning and did not do shear design. The reason for this restriction does not apply entirely to shear design, it is because the stiffness analysis of the member becomes unreliable, which would equally apply to moment design. Furthermore, when this condition occurred, the output showed only "Invalid Notch Length/Depth" with no further explanation distinguishing this situation from the 25% of beam depth restriction relevant to shear design.
Because this is a recommendation and not a strict design code clause, the design results now include a warning, without stating that design failed, explaining the concern about stiffness analysis . It now shows both shear and moment design results.
Note that this condition can apply to common situations, for example a birdsmouth notch on a 4:12 slope 2 x 6 must be only ½" deep for a 1.5 " bearing length to avoid the warning. This is usually inadequate, whereas the 25% depth restriction allows for a notch 1-3/8" deep and over 4" bearing
Starting with version 9, when the notch length = support length checkbox in Beam Input view is checked on beams with left cantilevers, the program would crash. Usually it crashed upon activating the check box, but it could also happen when other user interface actions are taken. Note that this bug was originally reported as fixed for version 9.1, but it was not completely corrected at that point.
Interior notches on sloped members that are longer than the support length are no longer centred on the support, instead the support is at the lower end of the notch. This is how common birdsmouth notches in rafters are built.
The program updated notches on sloped members to be the same length as the bearing length if they were input shorter than the bearing length, although that condition is possible for sloped members, such as when a wedge is used to provide bearing. This has been corrected and longer notch lengths are now possible for sloped members. In addition, you no longer have to copy the notch length into the bearing length field to avoid problems. Now the program does that for you when changing the notch length and you can then lengthen it if you want after that. .
When calculating the 1/3 span length for the maximum length of notches, the program included the support, so that for small spans it issued the warning even if the notch is entirely over the span. This was particularly apparent for interior notches next to short cantilever spans, and has been corrected.
Notch length and notch depth input fields did allow imperial fractional input, because they updated, imposed limits, and changed related fields every time a character is entered, for example when trying to enter a 13/16 notch it disallowed it when 13 is typed.
The following problems regarding the drawing of lateral support symbols have been corrected:
Sloped multi-span beams with a specified lateral support spacing is drawing the lateral supports with a large gap between the lateral supports and the beam.
In drawing lateral supports, the program now takes into account that you can specify interior bearing supports that are not laterally supported (Feature 212 for version 9.1) by not showing a lateral support symbol at the bearing support.
The starting point for interior spans is now be the middle of the support, not the right edge.
A lateral support symbol is now placed at the end of the beam.
The following problems with bearing and supporting members have been corrected.
If you typed in a length like 1.113 in the bearing length input, the program rounded to the nearest 1/8th of an inch when exiting the view then entering it again, or when it was updated for other reasons. This created problems in conjunction with the notch length field, which updates based on the bearing length, but doesn’t' round the same way. The bearing length input field now operates like other inputs.
The program was showing the width of a single ply as the bearing width for built-up members. Now in this case it does not show a bearing width, as it is assumed to be the main member width if not showing.
The dimension line for clear span for cantilevered beams wasn’t showing the gap at the support.
The following problems with Concept mode have been corrected
When a member which is supported by multiple ply members was exported from Concept mode to Beam or Column mode, the program assumed the supporting member has only one ply when assigning a bearing width. Now, it assigns an unknown bearing width, as plies are not input into concept mode groups and the program assumes plies are unknown.
Note that the program does not export the widths or depths of supporting members as they were designed by concept mode - if they were unknown in concept groups, then they are unknown in the exported member. .
When trying to enter a snap increment below the minimum allowable 1", a message box was being displayed showing an unrelated message. This has been corrected.
The Gridpoint Elevation field has been widened to accommodate the lengthy text showing the absolute and relative elevation.
Control-C in took you to column view when the standard operation is to copy the selected text in an edit control. Ctrl C now copies text and Ctrl-Alt-C is now used to go to column view.
The program was interpreting actual section sizes recorded in the I-joist database in millimetres as if they were in imperial, and multiplying by 25.4. This showed up in the width and depth input when millimetres were selected, in the depth of the member in the drawing, and in the output specification of the actual size of the member (but not the nominal size). Each of these was unrealistically large. The section sizes shown in Database Editor were also wrong.
Member design was not affected.
When you typed in a value for a member that is the actual size of a standard section, e.g. 3.5, the program did not switch the label from in nom to in. This has been corrected.
The design note for the Versa Lam LVL now indents similarly to other design notes.
The weak-axis grade properties for SCL materials such as LVL, introduced with version 9, were showing up as zeroes in Database Editor. The values stored in the database and used by Sizer were the correct ones. The problem in Database Editor has been corrected.
The program now includes Louisiana Pacific SolidStart LVL and LSL materials, for beams, joists, walls and columns, with a maximum of 4 plies. Information about LP LSL and LVL can be found in the evaluation reports– CCMC 13319-R and CCMC 11518-R respectively.