Canadian Wood Design now Available

Timber design per the Canadian CSA 086-2009 design code is now available. Canadian wood member design is very similar to the US NDS member design. There are slightly different load factors, material properties, shape tables, and capacity equations, but the overall modeling procedure in RISA is the same.

Selecting the Canadian Design Code

Start by selecting the “CSA 086-09: Ultimate” code from the Codes tab of Global Parameters:

Setting up Canadian Wood Materials

The next step is to set up your materials.

As long as you have selected the Canadian wood design code (as shown above), the program will know to use the material properties per the CSA 086-09 Tables 5.3.1A-D. These properties depend on the material selection and the shape selection.

Setting up Metric Shape Members

Wood shape selection depends on your selected units.

If you are using metric units then you will be able to select your shape from the list of standard metric shapes, or manually enter a full sawn size using mm:

If you are using imperial units then you will be able to select your shape from the list of standard imperial shapes, or manually enter a full sawn size using in:

Design Results

After the model is solved, the results are available in the Design Results spreadsheet, or in the member Detail Report.