The Steel Joist Institute KCS-series joists are contained in a table called RAMKCS.CSJ. The KCS-series joists are referred to as Constant Shear Joists.

This table is located in the tables sub-directory of the main RAM directory.

The joists in these tables are ordered from most economical to leastxe "Joist Labels: Standard" economical. The Beam Design module will select the first joist in the table that conforms to the capacity requirements and design criteria specified (e.g., deflection limits, depth restrictions, etc.). If no joist in the table meets all of the requirements, the label xxSJxx will be assigned.

RAM Steel Beam Design's order of selection can be altered by changing the order of joists in the tables or deleting joists from the tables. The user may also create custom tables of joists using the same format as the original tables. Instructions for editing and creating tables are located in the RAM Manager manual.

Some jurisdictions limit the allowable stresses in the steel joists to values less than those allowed by S.J.I. Since the tables are based on the S.J.I. allowable stresses, a means has been provided whereby the user can limit the stresses and obtain acceptable joist selections. This is done by issuing the Criteria - Joists command and modifying the Allowable Stress Ratio. The value specified should be less than or equal to 1.0.

SJI Specifications limit the span of K-series joists to 24 times their depth. The program rejects KCS joists that do not satisfy that limitation. The user should specify a custom joist for situations where a more shallow joist is required.

If any loads on the joist are in uplift, Constant Shear Joists will not be selected.

When calculating deflections for comparison against the user-specified allowable values, the deflection values are multiplied by 1.15 as specified by S.J.I.

Default and alternate joist tables and criteria are selected at the time of installation by the system administrator. These defaults can be modified using the Criteria – Joists command. See Section 4.8 for details.