Category Archives: UDFs

Beam actions and deflections, 3D or 2D

Posted on 01/02/2014 by dougaj4

Two new functions have been added to the ConBeamU spreadsheet, last discussed here. The new version can be downloaded from ConBeamU.zip, including full open-source code. The new functions, BeamAct3D and BeamAct2D calculate forces, moments, deflections and rotations along a 3D … Continue reading →

Posted in Beam Bending, Excel, Finite Element Analysis, Frame Analysis, Newton, Strand7, UDFs, VBA | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Two MaxAbs functions

Posted on 20/01/2014 by dougaj4

Excel does not have a built-in function to find the maximum absolute value of a range, perhaps because the Max() and Abs() functions can be combined in an array function: =Max(Abs(datarange)) This solution has a number of drawbacks however: The … Continue reading →

Posted in Arrays, Excel, Maths, Newton, UDFs, VBA | Tagged , , , , | 9 Comments

Solving Quadratic, Cubic, Quartic and higher order equations; examples

Posted on 14/01/2014 by dougaj4

A previous post presented a spreadsheet with functions for solving cubic and quartic equations, and this has been extended with another function solving higher order polynomials.  The functions are actually very easy to use, but the documentation in the spreadsheets is quite brief, … Continue reading →

Posted in Arrays, Excel, Link to Python, Maths, Newton, UDFs, VBA | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 13 Comments

Converting from global to local coordinates (and vice versa)

Posted on 08/01/2014 by dougaj4

In 3D structural analysis (as well as many other applications) it is necessary to convert section properties, forces, and deflections between coordinate systems defined by individual structural members (local coordinates) and the common coordinate system defining the entire structure (global … Continue reading →

Posted in Excel, Finite Element Analysis, Frame Analysis, Link to Python, Maths, UDFs, VBA | Tagged , , , , , , , | 22 Comments

Python for VBA users- 7; Making Python go Faster

Posted on 20/12/2013 by dougaj4

As reported in the previous post in this series, although the compiled routines included in packages such as Numpy, Scipy, and Pysparse are very fast, other parts of the code turned out to be slower than the equivalent in VBA.  … Continue reading →

Posted in Arrays, Excel, Finite Element Analysis, Frame Analysis, Link to Python, Newton, NumPy and SciPy, UDFs, VBA | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment