Steel Designer is used to check the compliance of a member or design a member to a specific steel design code. Each of the steel design codes supported by Steel Designer is divided into a number of design checks. The user can specify which of these checks are performed when a member is designed or checked. The design checks are grouped into the categories; Bending, Tension, Compression, Combined, and Seismic. However, not all codes have checks in each category and the design checks listed within each category vary according to the design code performed when a member is designed or checked.

A design member is a single member or a group of co-linear members that are to be considered as a single member for the purposes of design. In this manual, the term member often refers to a design member when used in the context of design.

Bending checks are usually used on members which resist the applied loads by flexural and shear actions. Typically the horizontal members in a frame will support the live and gravity loads in this way. A member may be subject to flexure and shear in either the major or minor axis directions (or both) depending the orientation of the section and the direction of the loading.

Tension checks are performed on members that are subject to axial tension. This would include members such as bracing and members in trusses which are under tension.

Compression checks are used on members that support axial compression. Columns and bracing in frames and compression members in trusses are some of the types of members that are likely to be checked using this option. Some codes may also include a check on the slenderness of a member.

When a member is subject to combined actions, generally bi-axial bending or a combination of axial tension or compression and bending, it is likely to be necessary to carry out a combined check on the member's performance.

Serviceability checks allow the user to specify the maximum deflection of a member.  For some codes the serviceability checks have been included with the Bending checks.

When a structure is located in a seismic region some additional design requirements are imposed by some design codes.  This typically requires that certain members within a steel frame be designed for ductility.

Steel Designer can be used to check the compliance of a member to a steel design code. When checking a member, Steel Designer computes an efficiency for each of the active design checks. The efficiency is a measure of the member's design action, design stress or deflection expressed as a percentage of the allowable capacity as calculated using the design rules. That is, an ideal member is loaded or stressed to 100% of its allowable design capacity (or slightly less) and a member labelled as being 50% efficient is twice as strong as it needs to be.

When checking a member, the user has the option to output the design calculations performed by Steel Designer to the report window.

As well as helping to check a frame's compliance with the design rules, Steel Designer can also help you to select the lightest weight section that satisfies the design rules. In this case, Steel Designer iterates through the current group of sections until it finds the optimal section that satisfies the selected design checks. Steel Designer also computes the efficiency of the optimal section for each of the active design checks.

Steel Designer can produce a detailed report of the design calculations it performs for each member. The level of reporting can be tailored by the user to reduce the amount of detail shown in the report. The design calculations produced by Steel Designer are displayed in the Report Window. You can copy and paste from this window into other programs, save from it in RTF format, or directly print the contents of the window.

Alternatively you can choose to output the design calculations directly to Microsoft Word 97 or Microsoft Word 2000.  This option can be specified in the Preferences Dialog. If this option is selected and Microsoft Word is installed on the computer, Multiframe will automatically run Word when it is required for reporting.  The design report will be placed into a new document in Word. This method of reporting is very fast and gives you direct access to the advanced printing and formatting options of Microsoft Word.