M. To manually form physical members

To form a physical member for a selected set of analytical members, use the following procedure.

The following are required to form a physical member:

analytical members must be interconnected
analytical members are collinear
the local axes of the component members should be identical (i.e., the x, y, and z are respectively parallel and in the same sense)
a single analytical member may not be in more than one physical member

Select one or more beams which represent a single physical member.
Note: Component analytical members must meet the criteria for physical members.
Either

on the Beam ribbon tab, select the Form Member tool in the Model group

or
on the Geometry ribbon tab, select the Form Member tool in the Physical Member group (Analytical Modeling workflow)

or
on the Member Design ribbon tab, select the Form Member tool in the Physical Member group (Steel Design workflow)

or
right-click and select Form Member from the pop-up menu.

The physical member (i.e., M#) number is displayed on each component analytical member and the physical member is added to the Physical Member table.