Governing Codes and Design Standards
What governing codes and design standards does ENERCALC SEL support?
ENERCALC SEL provides structural engineers with a single, consistent, easy-to-use source for the design and analysis tasks common to all buildings. Part of that consistency is broad support for the governing codes and design standards you use every day. In general, our software supports the currently adopted of governing codes and design standards and two prior adoptions – for a total of three.
SUPPORTED GOVERNING CODES AND DESIGN STANDARDS
We currently support the following governing codes and design standards:
- IBC 2021, IBC 2018, IBC 2015
- ASCE 7-16 and 7-10
- ACI 318-19 and ACI 318-14
- ACI 530-13
- TMS 402-16
- AISC 360-16 and AISC 360-10
- NDS 2018
UPCOMING GOVERNING CODE AND DESIGN STANDARD CHANGES
Last updated Aug 29, 2024
- Work is in progress to incorporate changes made in IBC 2024.
- Work is in progress to incorporate changes made in ASCE 7-22.
- We’re reorganizing how we manage selection of ASCE vs IBC for projects. We’ve added details about that further down this page – see “UPCOMING CHANGES IN HOW OUR SOFTWARE ALLOWS SELECTION OF CODES AND STANDARDS”.
WHAT ABOUT STATE-SPECIFIC MODIFICATIONS?
We do not currently support state-specific modifications of governing codes and design standards.
Like it or not, if you look around at other software in our market (competitive or otherwise), you’ll find that no one else supports these modifications.
OK, there is one vendor who claims to support CBC 2022. When you dig deeper, you’ll find that they support only the CBC 2022 modifications for a single agency. One difficulty with that – there are 4000+ additional permutations of IBC 2021 modifications made in CBC 2022 because the applicable modifications are adopted on a chapter by chapter and agency by agency basis. This isn’t wrong or bad, it’s simply how it works.
There’s a reason for the lack of support by software vendors: it’s become incredibly complex to add and maintain these state-specific, agency-specific code modifications. The permutations balloon quickly.
Our perspective on CBC2022 and what we’ve done about it with the advice of California engineers. (LINK)
This situation is also affected by changing adoption practices by government jurisdictions. See below “ADOPTION PRACTICES ARE CHANGING”.
ADOPTION PRACTICES ARE CHANGING
Historically, ENERCALC has provided support for the modules that reference the various chapters of IBC and the referenced design standards when a particular IBC edition becomes widely adopted. For example, IBC 2021 was widely adopted on Jan 1, 2023 – and ENERCALC was ready for IBC 2021 on that date.
Given that the governing bodies have mixed and matched adoptions of IBC editions and referenced design standard editions (specifically ASCE 7), our scheduling for the rollout of code support must adapt, as you have had to. Our intent is to implement future design standards as soon as possible after they are released so that none of us get in a pinch when a governing body adopts a new code much more quickly than it was done in the past.
WHAT HAPPENS IN THE MEANTIME?
In the interim, we’re working on ASCE 7-22 and IBC 2024 as we speak.
- ASCE 7-22 load combinations were available in the July 2024 build (as is load linking for steel beam).
- The ASCE 7-22 Seismic Base Shear module is available in the late August 2024 build.
You can expect that the remaining ASCE 7-22 modules will be introduced as they are completed. The option for IBC 2024 as a governing code will be introduced when all necessary work items have been completed in all modules. That’s one thing we won’t introduce in a piecemeal fashion, but we will complete this work before IBC 2024 is broadly adopted just as we did for IBC 2021.
Until then, please note that the Building Code Info tab now offers the ability to create, save, and insert a state-specific code compliance note on each page of the printed report with the intent of facilitating acceptance of calcs during the review process. This allows you to write a disclaimer to the reviewing agency that you have reviewed the calculations for conformance with the local code adoptions and amendments (regardless of what is actually indicated on the calculation report).
UPCOMING CHANGES FOR SELECTION OF EDITIONS AND STANDARDS
Finally, we are planning to decouple the selection of ASCE 7 edition from the selection of IBC edition. Historically, ASCE 7 edition was inferred through the selection of an IBC edition, as suggested in the screen capture below.
TODAY’S ENERCALC:
But to add flexibility, and to accommodate jurisdictions that select a different ASCE 7 edition than the one referenced in their selected IBC edition, we plan to introduce the following control for the independent selection of ASCE 7 edition (noting that ASCE edition is not mentioned in the IBC selection).
UPCOMING ENERCALC:
