Just curious if the wood standards in RAM Elements are being actively maintained or not. The rolled steel, cold-formed steel, and concrete design specs are all listed as current (AISC 2016, AISI 2016, ACI 2014), but wood is still back on 2005, even though NDS 2018 is out. I'm trying to use RAM Elements to cross-check another program that is up-to-date in their references and would like to compare apples to apples as much as possible.
Thanks,
Jason
I have only had a few people request an update, so it's been a lower priority than some of the other codes. I do expect it to get updated eventually. (Re: Enhancement 454831: Update National Design Specification (NDS) for Wood Construction 2012, 2018)
Answer Verified By: Jason McCool
Yeah, we don't normally get into serious wood design too often, but I have some significant loads on a current project that warrant extra attention. Maybe most people don't know that the values for things like E'min are off now because NDS has changed properties throughout their wood data tables over the last 13 years. Then E'min feeds into Cp, which directly affects column strength. Don't know how much else has changed, but that was the one that caused me to start investigating the discrepancy between Elements and Dlubal. Thanks.
With the recent push for more mass timber design, having the latest NDS will be a deciding factor on whether or not to use RE as opposed to another product.
If I am not on the list for the NDS update, put me down. I have used Ram Elements numerous times for analysis and design of wood framing.
Seth, any update on this?