Special Joists also have a designation assigned by the RAM Steel Beam Design program.

Designations for Special Joists are of the form xxGSP where:

• xx is the depth (see Section 4.7 for further discussion of joist depth).

For example, a Special Joist having a depth of 27 inches would have a designation of: 27GSP.

The program will first try to designate a joist as a Standard Joist or a Joist Girder. However, if the load magnitudes or configurations are such that they don't meet the criteria for those designations, the joist will be given the Special Joist designation. These joists need to be designed by the joist manufacturer.

Joists with a slope greater than 1:1 and cantilevered joists will always be given a Special Joist designation. Joists with any uplift loads will always be given a Special Joist designation.

Special Joist designations can be modified on a joist-by-joist basis using the Beam Design module's View/Update command. Enter a new label in the Joist Size edit box and issue the Update Database command. Remember that when this is done to a joist specified by the program as a Special Joist, no capacity check is performed, even if the label entered is an actual Standard Joist label; the program is just treating it as a different label. Also, if the loads in the model are changed, the user-specified label will remain without any design check performed or warning given.

No joist weight will be included in the Takeoff for Special Joists.