Adding a Structural Steel Beam to a Part

You can insert the cross-section sketch of a structural steel beam into a part. The sketch is fully-dimensioned to match industry standard sizes. You can extrude the sketch in SOLIDWORKS to create the beam.

You can also drag structural steel parts into your assembly from the Toolbox Browser. For details, see Adding Parts to Assemblies.

To add a sketch of a structural steel beam to a part:

  1. Make sure you are not currently editing a sketch, then select a plane or planar face in your part.
  2. Click Structural Steel (Toolbox toolbar) or Toolbox > Structural Steel.
  3. In the Structural Steel dialog box, select a standard, a beam type, and an available cross-section from the lists on the top left of the dialog box.

    The Section Property and Value columns are updated to reflect your selections.

  4. Optional:
    • Click Beam Calculator to use the Beam Calculator dialog box to help you determine which beam to select.
    • Click Send To to send the structural steel properties to a printer or text file.
  5. Click Create to add the sketch of the cross-section of the structural steel member to a part.
    If you did not select a plane or planar face in step 1, the sketch appears on the Front plane.
  6. Click Done.
  7. To precisely locate the cross-section, right-click the new sketch, select Edit Sketch, and add dimensions or relations to position the sketch.