Starting a Design

Owned by Joseph Mckee
Last updated: Jun 17, 2020 by Becca Alford (Unlicensed)
3 min read

As mentioned earlier, to start Eriksson Culvert, run Eriksson Culvert.exe.  However, the easiest way to start Eriksson Culvert is to launch it through the Programs folder of the Start menu, which should be located in the lower left-hand corner of your screen.

When Eriksson Culvert is first started, two basic options are available.  Either a new design can be started or a previous job can be re-opened.

To start a new design, double click on one of the default start files in the middle section of the start-up screen. There are five different culvert types available to start a design from, four-sided, three-sided, two-cell, type I, or type II. Clicking once on any of these buttons will show the file preview summary, double clicking will open the file.

 

To open a saved file, you can click on the “show file explorer” button to easily navigate through Eriksson Culvert files stored locally on your computer. Alternatively you can click the “open file” button on the left side of the screen to open the traditional Windows file explorer.

 Only one job is permitted to be open at a time in Eriksson Culvert.  Accordingly, when a new job is opened, the current job is automatically closed.  If any changes have been made to the current job, the user will be presented with the option of saving the current job first.

 Once a design has been started, you can go back to the start-up screen by clicking on the “new” button on the tool bar; or open an existing file by clicking on the “open” button.

 

Required Input

The input for Eriksson Culvert is organized into logical groups of data.  Each group is entered via one or more dialog boxes of information.  The main groups are as follows:

  • Project Settings –  Job description, governing specification and operation mode

  • Culvert Properties – Culvert dimensions and material properties

  • Static Loads – Applied static loads, and seismic options

  • Moving Loads - Applied trucks

  • Load & Resistance Factors – Override load & resistance factors as necessary

  • Analysis Options - Specify run-time changes to basic assumptions and equations

  • Reinforcement – Edit properties of rebar at any position

 When a new job is started, the input boxes in the above dialog boxes will each be initialized to reasonable default values. 

 Program Computations

Eriksson Culvert automatically updates its calculations whenever an open dialog box is closed using the OK button for that dialog box.  Calculations are also recomputed when a previous job is restored.  Because of its extremely fast 32-bit calculation engine, Eriksson Culvert’s recalculation times are typically less than a few seconds.