Which codes FRAMECAD calculates to
Why this is the key question on a Hungarian project
Section titled “Why this is the key question on a Hungarian project”A structure built in Hungary must be designed to the Eurocodes — that is a question of the building, not of the technology, and it applies to thin-walled steel exactly as it does to anything else. So the first question about an LGS design tool is not whether it produces a nice drawing, but which design system it thinks in.
Many design tools were born in a North American or Australian standards environment. If the software can only calculate in that system, then on a Hungarian project its output cannot serve as verification, only as a starting point — and the structural design has to be done again alongside it.
What the manufacturer documents
Section titled “What the manufacturer documents”FRAMECAD’s public knowledge base has a separate document on the codes supported in Steelwise, broken down by region. For Europe it lists the following:
Load combinations
Section titled “Load combinations”EN 1990:2002 and EN 1990:2025, with two wind inputs: 3-second gust (GUST) and 10-minute mean (MEAN) wind speed.
Steel design
Section titled “Steel design”EN 1993-1-3:2006 and EN 1993-1-3:2024 — that is, the Eurocode part for cold-formed sections, in both the older and the second-generation edition.
Seismic
Section titled “Seismic”EN 1998-1:2004.
The same document shows that other regions have quite different sets: IBC and AISI S100 for the American market, AS/NZS 1170 and AS/NZS 4600 with the NASH supplements in Australia and New Zealand, NBCC and CSA S136 in Canada, and so on. So the software does not “calculate universally” — it calculates according to its settings, and the designer has to choose those settings correctly.
What should not be read into this
Section titled “What should not be read into this”The national annex is not in the list
Section titled “The national annex is not in the list”The document names EN standards, not national annexes. The Hungarian national annex defines, among other things, the snow and wind zones, the terrain categories and part of the partial and combination factors. These have to be entered correctly in the project data — a designer’s task, not a software default.
Until that has been checked, a model “set to Eurocode” may still be a model calculated with the wrong zone data.
The software does not sign
Section titled “The software does not sign”In Hungarian practice the adequacy of the structure is certified by the signature of the qualified structural engineer. The software’s calculation is a working tool for that. This is exactly the same logic that applies to verifying light gauge steel buildings: in the end the responsibility always rests with a named engineer.
The point
Section titled “The point”That the system calculates natively in the Eurocodes is a major convenience: no results have to be translated back from a foreign standards system. But no software takes the national annex parameters — or the signature — off the designer’s shoulders.
Sources
Section titled “Sources”“Engineering codes supported in Steelwise” (FRAMECAD Knowledge Hub), retrieved in September 2026. The text of the referenced standards is available through the national standards body.