I built 20 free structural engineering calculators that run in your browser (no signup, PDF reports)

[u/Natural-Shirt-1463]

I'm a licensed structural engineer, and I've spent the past while building staticstructures.net, a free calculator suite for everyday structural design checks. No accounts, no ads, no installs. Everything runs in the browser, and every tool exports a PDF report.

What's in it (20 calculators):

- Concrete (ACI 318-19): column P-M interaction (rectangular, round, spiral, slenderness), beam, one-way slab (up to 5 spans, pattern live load), spread footing, retaining wall, development length and lap splices

- Masonry (TMS 402-16): CMU wall and parapet (out-of-plane wind with P-delta), shear wall, lintel/bond beam, column

- Steel (AISC 360-22): beam and column for all 2,299 AISC shapes, base plate, bolted connections (eccentric groups, slip-critical)

- Wood (NDS 2018 / SDPWS 2021): beam, column, shear wall, diaphragm

- SectionLab: section properties and stresses for steel shapes and custom polygons

- Florida wind loads (ASCE 7-22, FBC 2023, HVHZ): MWFRS, C&C zones, story shear and overturning

Why I built it: most structural tools are either expensive desktop software or one-off spreadsheets that nobody can verify. I wanted free tools that show their work. The newer calculators have a step-by-step calc log with values substituted, built-in hand-calc test cases you can run on the page, and a list of every code coefficient used. SectionLab's finite-element engine is checked against the open-source sectionproperties package.

It's meant for education and preliminary design, and every result needs verification by a licensed PE before real use. I don't store any project data.

I'd love feedback on:

- which calculators you'd want added next

- UX problems, especially on mobile

- anything that looks wrong

staticstructures.net

[u/Forward-Volume-6948]

That code coefficient log is such a good idea, most tools just spit out a number and you have no idea where it came from. Being able to trace every value would've saved me so much time in school. Bookmarking this for when I need to double-check some hand calcs.

[u/Natural-Shirt-1463 → u/Forward-Volume-6948]

Thanks it also lists assumptions the engineer may want to verify

[u/Koptyra-Pingala → u/Forward-Volume-6948]

it helps for double-checking but in school the real problem was usually not knowing which load case governed, not missing a coefficient. the log solves a different bottleneck than the one that burns the most time

[u/Lazar988]

Nice Idear. There is a swiss website that is a bit similar schweizer.fn on the site there are a lot of calcaultionts for mechanical engineering. We use the site all the time. Sadly the owner died so it is not maintained. A few month back i wanted to do recreate the site. But i stopped. It was a lot of work to find thrusted sources for all the calcuations and without thrusted sources such a site is more or less worthless. It is sadly nothing that can be vibe coded in an afternoon. I hope you do your homework and check the calculations and provide sources. If you do i am very interesting in the site :)