Structural engineers know that conservative assumptions can lead to overdesign, higher material costs, and inefficiencies. This month, we’re introducing two powerful new tools in ClearCalcs to help you design faster and more accurately:

Retaining Wall Design

Laterally loaded piles design to AS 2159:2009

Designing piles for lateral loads is often time-consuming, requiring engineers to balance embedment depth, reinforcement, and soil conditions. Many rely on manual calculations or multiple tools, increasing the risk of errors.

Our new Lateral Pile Design Calculator to AS 2159:2009 simplifies the process by helping you quickly determine embedment depth and reinforcement, all in one place.‍

• Calculate required embedment depth – Ensure lateral stability without unnecessary overdesign.
• Determine reinforcement requirements – Accurately design piles based on applied loads and soil conditions.
• Link reactions from other calculations – No need for manual data entry—import reaction forces from beams, columns, or other sheets within ClearCalcs.

This means less guesswork, faster pile design, and reduced risk of errors - whether you’re working on posts, fencing, or deep foundation piles.

Learn from our structural engineer, Lucas.

Steel Design

Lateral restraint inputs for steel beams

When designing steel beams, engineers often make overly conservative assumptions about lateral bracing, leading to higher material costs and inefficient designs.

With our latest update, you can now manually or automatically define lateral restraints in your steel beam design to AS 4100:2020, ensuring more accurate bending moment capacity calculations.

AS 4100:2020 Clause 5.6 outlines how lateral bracing affects effective length factors, which directly impact lateral-torsional buckling (LTB) calculations.

By explicitly defining lateral restraints, you can ensure that your buckling checks reflect real-world bracing conditions, rather than relying on conservative default assumptions. This leads to more precise bending moment capacity calculations and greater confidence that your design meets Australian standards.

Optimizing your bracing inputs also allows you to reduce unnecessary overdesign. With this new functionality, instead of assuming no bracing (worst-case) and oversizing beams, you can apply realistic bracing conditions to reduce member sizes while still satisfying strength and serviceability requirements.

Beyond cost savings, many beams in floor systems, portal frames, or roof structures have some level of lateral restraint. Now, engineers can properly account for these conditions in their designs, reducing unnecessary cost and material usage.

Learn from our structural engineer, Lucas.

Take Action

Engineered Wood Products (EWP) Specifications for Australian Projects

Monday, March 24th, 1pm (AEST)

Join us for a learning hour with Tom Rickerby, National Technical Manager at Wesbeam. Learn about different engineered wood products (EWP), when to specify them, and key considerations for Laminated Veneer Lumber (LVL).

Check out our upcoming webinars or watch previous webinars at your own pace!

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That's all for this month! If you have any feature requests or questions, don't hesitate to join the discussion in our Blueprint forum. We'd love to hear from you!