About StructureCalcs

Free, browser-based structural analysis calculators for beams and trusses. Built by a structural engineer, for structural engineers, students, and anyone who needs to solve real engineering problems.

Our Mission

StructureCalcs exists to make structural analysis accessible to everyone. Professional structural analysis software is expensive, complex, and often requires installation on specific operating systems. Students learning beam and truss analysis frequently have no access to professional tools and must rely on tedious hand calculations that are prone to arithmetic errors.

We believe that basic structural analysis should be free, instant, and available in any web browser on any device. Whether you are a civil engineering student verifying homework, a graduate engineer running a quick design check, or a DIY builder checking the deflection of a deck joist, StructureCalcs gives you professional-grade results without cost, installation, or registration.

Our calculators are designed to handle real engineering problems — not just textbook examples. Continuous beams with multiple spans and mixed support types, indeterminate trusses with thermal effects and support settlements, and steel sections from six international standards are all supported out of the box.

What We Offer

Beam Calculator — Analyze simply supported, cantilever, and continuous beams with unlimited spans. Compute shear force diagrams, bending moment diagrams, and deflection diagrams using the direct stiffness method. Apply point loads, distributed loads, area loads, and moments. Select from 2,600+ standard steel sections or enter custom properties for any material.

Truss Calculator — Analyze 2D pin-jointed trusses with unlimited nodes and members. Compute member forces (tension and compression), support reactions, and node displacements. Includes an interactive drawing canvas with snap-to-grid for easy geometry creation. Supports thermal effects, fabrication errors, and support settlements.

Steel Section Library — Over 2,600 section profiles from six international standards: AS4100 (Australia), AISC (USA), EN10365 (Europe), BS4 (UK), JIS (Japan), and IS808 (India). Every result is checked against classical hand solutions — see how the numbers are verified. Select any section and its properties populate automatically; the Section Calculator adds the section moduli — elastic Z and plastic S — for any shape you draw or place.

PDF Export — Generate professional calculation reports with input summaries, diagrams, and results tables. Customize with project details, job numbers, and engineer names.

Educational Content — Comprehensive learning guides covering beam types, shear force and bending moment diagrams, truss analysis, steel section properties, and structural engineering fundamentals.

The Technology Behind StructureCalcs

StructureCalcs is built with a modern technology stack designed for speed, privacy, and reliability:

Rust/WASM Calculation Engine: The core structural analysis engine is written in Rust and compiled to WebAssembly (WASM). Rust is a systems programming language known for memory safety and high performance. By compiling to WASM, the engine runs directly in your browser at near-native speed. The engine uses the nalgebra linear algebra library for matrix operations, ensuring numerical accuracy for the direct stiffness method.

React Frontend: The user interface is built with React 19, providing a responsive, interactive experience. Form inputs update results in real time with no page reloads. The interface supports both light and dark modes, SI and Imperial unit systems, and works on desktop and mobile devices.

Privacy by Design: All calculations run entirely in your browser. No data is sent to any server. There are no user accounts, no cloud storage, and no tracking of your engineering models. Your structural calculations are yours alone.

Internet Computer (ICP) Backend: Static asset hosting and optional features (like the feedback system) run on the Internet Computer blockchain, providing decentralized, censorship-resistant hosting with no traditional server infrastructure.

Why We Built This

StructureCalcs was born from a frustration that many engineering students and young engineers share: basic structural analysis tools should not be locked behind expensive software licences.

During university, the only options for checking beam and truss calculations were tedious hand calculations (prone to errors), licensed software in the campus computer lab (only available during opening hours), or free online calculators that could only handle the simplest cases (single-span beams with one load).

We wanted a tool that could handle real-world complexity — continuous beams with multiple spans and support types, indeterminate trusses, mixed loading, and standard steel sections — while remaining free, instant, and requiring no installation. The result is StructureCalcs.

The educational content on this site reflects our belief that understanding the theory behind the calculations is just as important as getting the numbers. Every guide includes worked examples, physical explanations, and links to the calculators so you can verify the theory yourself. We want StructureCalcs to be a place where you not only solve problems but also learn to think like a structural engineer.

Who Uses StructureCalcs

StructureCalcs serves a diverse community:

  • Engineering students use the calculators to verify homework, explore structural behavior, and build intuition about how beams and trusses respond to different loading conditions.
  • Graduate engineers use StructureCalcs for quick preliminary design checks before setting up detailed models in professional software. The instant feedback loop makes it ideal for early-stage design exploration.
  • Practicing engineers use it for rapid verification of hand calculations, sanity checks on computer models, and ad-hoc design queries that do not warrant firing up a full software suite.
  • Educators and lecturers use the interactive calculators in classroom demonstrations to show how shear force, bending moment, and deflection diagrams change as loads and supports are modified in real time.
  • DIY builders and hobbyists use the beam calculator to check structural adequacy of decks, pergolas, shelving, and other projects where understanding deflection and load capacity matters.

Accuracy and Limitations

The StructureCalcs calculation engine uses the direct stiffness method, which is the same mathematical framework used by professional software like SAP2000, ETABS, STAAD.Pro, and Strand7. For linear-elastic analysis of beams and trusses, the stiffness method produces exact results — not approximations.

That said, users should be aware of the following limitations:

  • The analysis is linear-elastic. It does not account for material yielding, plastic hinge formation, geometric nonlinearity (P-delta effects), or dynamic effects. For most beam and truss problems under normal loading, linear-elastic analysis is appropriate and consistent with standard design code procedures.
  • StructureCalcs performs analysis only, not design. It computes internal forces and deflections but does not perform design code checks (capacity verification, stability checks, connection design). Use the analysis results as input to your design calculations or design software.
  • The calculators are provided as educational and preliminary design tools. For final design of structures that affect life safety, always have calculations reviewed by a qualified professional structural engineer and use software that has been validated for your jurisdiction’s design codes.

Get in Touch

We value your feedback. If you have suggestions, bug reports, feature requests, or just want to share how you use StructureCalcs, please visit the Feedback page. No login is required.

For privacy, terms of use, and cookie policy information, see:

Start Calculating

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