Rather than having the program select a joist from a joist table, the user can have RAM Steel give the joist a custom joist designation which specifies required depth and loading information. To instruct the Beam Design module to specify custom joist designations rather than selecting sizes from a table, issue the Criteria – Joist command and select the Specify Custom Label option.

When the Specify Custom Label option is selected, a user-specified joist label must be provided. This is a partial label, a text string which will be incorporated into the joist label. A default is entered at the time of installation by the system administrator and will appear in the Label edit box. This label can be changed by entering a new label of not more than four characters in the edit box.

The custom joist designation is of the form xxJSTttt/lll where:

• xx is the depth (see Section 4.6 for further discussion of joist depth),
• JST is a user specified label (maximum of four characters),
• ttt is the total uniform load, and
• lll is the uniform live load.

For example, the designation for a joist with a user-specified partial label of "JST", a depth of 21 inches, a total uniform load of 675 kips and a uniform live load of 382 kips would look like this: 21JST675/382.

Joist designations are limited to 13 characters. If the depth restriction, joist label, and loads are such that the label will exceed 15 characters, the user-specified label is truncated to a single character. If the label will still exceed 15 characters, "Label Too Long" is indicated on the joist in place of a designation.

Custom 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.

No joist weight will be included in the Takeoff for joists with custom labels.