Samples tour
The Samples browser (File > Samples…, or the Resources tab) lists 151 worksheets, with groups, a search box and a preview. Opening a sample puts it in a new tab, where you can change it freely: nothing you do changes the original. A sample that has input fields carries an input form tag. The Samples browser never runs a sample’s Python; its preview shows the source, and opening the sample asks first.
Sheets
Written in the sheet format. They are listed first.
| Group | What is in it |
|---|---|
| Sheet syntax (15) | Beam bending, a short column, a floor-load table with vectors and matrices, a moment diagram with a plot, LaTeX prose, mixing with raw Calcpad and loops, beam and cantilever deflection, a three-span beam explorer with Python and Plotly, a beam deflection derived with the Symbolic dialog, polynomial roots, principal stresses, natural frequencies of a shear frame, principal axes of a section, and the thrust of a gable frame with a pinned or a rigid ridge. |
| Templates (7) | Sheets with input forms: a simply supported beam check, a cantilever with a tip load, rectangular column slenderness, a pad footing bearing pressure check, pipe flow, a retaining wall (sliding and overturning) and a pump and pipeline operating point. Each carries the input form tag. See Templates with inputs. |
| Plots and diagrams (16) | A plot gallery of implicit curves, functions and polylines on a grid, an animated beam with a moving load (Play, Pause, a slider), and fourteen sheets with a diagram drawn from text next to the numbers: a design check as a flow diagram, a load path, the design states of a beam, a review and sign-off sequence, a construction programme (Gantt chart), a dead load share (pie chart), a cost plan (treemap), a site risk matrix (quadrant chart), a bending moment chart (XY chart), the energy flow through a pump (Sankey), a footbridge brief (mind map), requirements traceability, concrete strength gain (timeline) and section shapes (class diagram). |
| 3D plots (5) | A plate deflection surface, a column interaction surface, a space frame in 3D lines, a mode-shape explorer with a dropdown, a 3D bar chart of footing reactions. |
| Physics (1) | A tennis ball in flight: drag, spin and the sideways force from spin, integrated in a Python block. |
Calcpad worksheets
The bundled worksheets are the CalcpadCE examples, with their input fields written as #UI, plus a
few of our own.
| Group | What is in it |
|---|---|
| Beams (26) | Cantilevers, propped cantilevers, simply supported and fully restrained beams under point, moment, uniform, linear and partial loads; deflection of a cantilever and of a simply supported beam; a continuous beam by the force method. |
| Reinforced concrete (27) | Bars and areas, bending and shear of rectangular and tee sections, columns under axial force and one or two-way bending, an interaction diagram, serviceability, two-way slab panels with every edge condition, punching shear, detailing for ductility. |
| Steel (3) | Section properties of I-sections: by formula, from a catalogue with a drawing, from an Excel catalogue. |
| Loads (4) | Snow, wind and footing-pad optimisation worksheets. |
| Frames (3) | Plane frames with prismatic and tapered members, and a multi-storey frame. |
| Dynamics (4) | Free vibrations of a tapered pole, with plain, Plotly and SVG animations; drop-weight impact on a beam. |
| Nonlinear (2) | A prestressed truss with material and geometric nonlinearity, and a nonlinear truss with an animation. |
| Soil mechanics (1) | Stress and deformation in soil. |
| Sections (1) | Properties of a built-up section. |
| Maths and plotting (31) | Getting started (calculating, functions and plots, unit conversion), matrices (creation, indexing, operators, structural and maths functions), interpolation, custom units (currency and information), numerical differentiation and integration, roots and systems of equations, Newton’s method with animation, a Monte Carlo estimate, elastic solutions and finite-element worksheets for deep beams and slabs. |
| Python (5) | A beam moment diagram with matplotlib, a function plot with matplotlib, a beam explorer with Plotly, a continuous beam with Python results in raw JavaScript Plotly, and a plane truss by the stiffness method. |
Good places to start:
- Getting Started: Calculating, Functions and Plots and Units and Conversion, to see the Calcpad language at its simplest.
- Template: simply supported beam check (the Templates group), to see an input form: press Input and change the span.
- Beam bending with real units (sheet) and Bending moment diagram (sheet), the shortest complete sheets.
- Design check as a flow diagram and the other sheets of the Plots and diagrams group, to see a diagram written as text next to the calculation it describes. See Diagrams.
- Matrix worksheets, for a tour of the vector and matrix functions.
- Beam Explorer: Plotly from Python, for the Python and Plotly route.
The samples that were written for other design practices apply rules specific to those practices. Read a sample as an example of the technique and check its assumptions before reusing a number.