Click the Strand Pattern button to activate the Strand Pattern screen, see the figure below. This is where the design or analysis of the selected beam is performed. To analyze an existing beam, input the pattern manually and check the design status onn the right-hand side of the screen. To design a beam, input the pattern manually or allow the program to automatically generate the pattern by clicking the Auto Design button. You can modify the strand pattern at any time by selecting the Strand Pattern button on the Beam tab screen. An alternative to manually inputting the strand pattern by editing the values directly in the grid is to define the strand pattern graphically in the Graphical Strand Pattern Input Wizard dialog, activated by clicking on the Wizard button.

The Design Status shows a design summary of the results. This is useful when you are manually inputting a strand pattern by trial and error. We recommend that you check the design status after any changes are made to any of the design parameters on the Beam tab screen. The program flags the sections that do not satisfy the allowable/limiting stresses or ultimate moment criteria with an asterisk (*).

Precast/Prestressed Girder now allows you to save and re-use the strand pattern (along with any detensioning or pull percentage variance) across different files. By checking the Save/Load Strand Pattern option on the bottom portion of the Strand screen, the Save, Load and Save As buttons will appear. The basic functionality supported here is that the user can save a strand pattern specified in the grid above into a strand pattern library, and re-use the pattern in a different file for the same beam ID. Simply type a name for the strand pattern and click the Save As button to save the current strand pattern to the strand pattern library file. This saved strand pattern will now be available in the list box, and you simply need to load it to begin using this pattern on the Strand dialog box. This option is extremely beneficial in states which only use a limited set of predefined strand patterns, and are unlikely to use the auto strand generation capabilities of the program.

You can design strand patterns for all beams or for a single beam and Precast/Prestressed Girder will retain the patterns. You can also copy strand patterns to other beams, all beams, or all spans. If you make changes to the geometry, materials, or loads data, Precast/Prestressed Girder will give you an option to keep the strand pattern.