To make a shear plate connection in Advance Steel, open the Connection Vault from the Home tab, go to Platform Beams > Shear Plate, select the supporting beam and then the supported beam. Advance Steel builds the plate, bolts, welds and cuts and opens a dialog where you adjust them.
A shear plate (single plate or shear tab) is one of the most common beam connections out there: a plate welded to the supporting member, with the supported beam’s web bolted to it. In Advance Steel you don’t have to build it from plates and bolts. The Connection Vault has a Shear Plate tool that creates the whole connection, cuts and copes included, in a couple of clicks. Here’s how to use it and where the main settings are.
Where is the Connection Vault?
Open the Connection Vault from the Home tab.
In this example we’ll connect two beams:
How do I make a shear plate connection in Advance Steel?
- In the Connection Vault, go to Platform Beams and click Shear Plate.
- Select the main (supporting) beam.
- Select the secondary (supported) beam.
The connection is created and a dialog box opens where you can adjust it.
How do I set the beam cuts and copes?
This tab controls how the secondary beam is cut to fit and whether stiffeners are added.
Set how the beam end is cut:
Set the top cope:
And the bottom cope:
Add a beam stiffener if you need one:
And a column stiffener:
How do I set the plate and bolts?
Here you set the plate size and shape, and the bolt layout: number of bolts, spacing, edge distances, and bolt type.
How do I set the welds?
Here you set where the welds go and their size.
The connection stays linked to the beams. If you move or resize a beam, the connection updates with it, and you can reopen the dialog later by double-clicking the connection’s gray box.
Plate thickness, bolt count and weld size come from the engineer’s connection design. Always verify with the engineer of record; the tool’s defaults are not a design.
What if the connection doesn’t look right?
- The connection fails or shows red. Check the beams actually meet and that you picked the supporting beam first.
- The plate is on the wrong side of the web. Change the side in the dialog.
- You want the same connection on many beams. Set one up, then copy it with Create by Template, Multiple on the Tools tab of the Tool Palette. See how to copy a connection in Advance Steel.
