To obtain actual allowable stresses for the various types of wood members is a detailed and tedious operation. Multiple conditions determine the type of allowable stress reduction factors that are used to obtain your final wood allowable stress value. This complicated approach even applies to the load capacity of fasteners such as screws and nails.

The Archon Wood Design Program makes this task much easier. The program uses the values and factors as shown in the American Wood Council (AWS) National Design Specification (NDS) 2018.

You just select the wood type and grade, various conditions such as load duration, average temperature, board dimensions, type of use etc. The program will calculate all applicable factors and adjust the allowable stress values accordingly. The program takes a multi-hour job and does it in a couple of minutes.

The program has data bases for various Soft Woods, Hard Woods, Glued-Laminated Members and Timbers. The program also has data bases for fasteners; including, Lag Screws, Wood Screws, Nails and Bolts.

All data and calculation methods used by the program were taken from the NDS manual and its supplement.

The program will run on Windows 7, 8 and 10 operating systems.

The program help uses a PDF file. In order for the help to be viewed from the program, the operating computer must be able to read a pdf file. If necessary a free Adobe PDF reader may be downloaded and installed from https://get.adobe.com/reader/.

Contact: techsupport@archonengineering.com