Beam and Column Calculator not finding Wk and Jk values

[karthur1]

I have complained about this before.  This time, its a little different, because I now have built a frame generator assembly using Structural shape (I-Beams).

Now I was going to use the Beam-Column calculator on a beam. So I start the Beam and Column calculator and select the beam in my frame generator assembly.  It fill out most of the information, but when I run the calculation, I get the error.

I really thought, prayed, or hoped that since the member was from the content center it would have all the necessary information that Inventor wants to do a deflection calculation (guess I was wrong about that).  It is still beyond me WHY inventor needs the Wk value. Rather that just crapping out it should show what calculations it can without the missing data.

Here is a post on how to calculate the Torsional Sectional Modulus for a hollow section.  What a joke.

[ADSKDJW4]

Hello @karthur1,

I will work this through the support case and repost once I have more information on this from the QA staff.

Regards,

Don

[ADSKDJW4]

Hello @karthur1,

Here is the information I have obtained from asking internally as to why these occur. In short there seems to be values that are missing from the CC libraries.

Inventor will not calculate the Wx, Wy, Wk & Jk values automatically when selecting a shape, you would need to go to Section -> Shapes to define the detail parameters, then the Beam/Column Calculation will work.

Fill in these information in CC library, then calculator could read it. There are plenty of CC families don’t have these parameters and second we need to code to know where to get these information and make sure they are correct.

In short it is a limitation at this time and would need to be positioned on the Inventor Ideas Station for a future release.

Regards,

Don

[TheCADWhisperer]

In my class - we found at least one size where there was no error - but the information entered was incorrect for the frame profile selected.

[ADSKDJW4]

Hello @TheCADWhisperer,

You are correct. The information from the development staff did indicate to me that there were some families that had this information. Seems the majority do not. For standard Structure Shapes inside Inventor, theoretically we get these values from CC table directly. But actually not all the CC Structure Shapes have these values. For example, ANSI AISC(Square) has all these parameters, and ANSI HP doesn’t, so we will meet error when calculate ANSI HP components.

This is why we would need to pursue this through the Ideas Station at this time. I cannot explain why we do not do this for all families in the CC.

Don