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
- on the Geometry ribbon tab, select the Form Member tool in the Physical Member group (Analytical Modeling workflow)
- on the Member Design ribbon tab, select the Form Member tool in the Physical Member group (Steel Design workflow)
- 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.