At certain points during the design process, it may be desirable to "r;Freeze" the design of some or all of the beam lines. Doing so allows the user to archive completed designs or to perform what-if type investigations without having the reinforcement re-optimized and potentially modified.

To freeze the design of a single beam line, select Process > Freeze - Single. The cursor will change from the arrow cursor to a target cursor. Click on a beam to freeze the design of the entire beam line. If the beam line has not been designed, a warning will be issued with an option to design the beam line now.

To freeze the design of multiple beam lines, select Process > Freeze - Fence. The cursor will change from the arrow cursor to the fence cursor. Fence a region to freeze multiple beam lines. Only beam lines located entirely within a fenced region will be frozen.

To freeze the design of all beam lines, select Process > Freeze - All. The freeze command will be performed on all beam lines.

Freezing a design on a beam line is equivalent to the Update Database command within View/Update. It marks the beam line as User Defined and saves the current reinforcement for the beam line. A frozen beam line will not be re-optimized until the design is cleared. Beams will be updated on screen to reflect their current status. See Concrete Beam Color-Coding for more information.