Comprehensive wood building design made easy with LAVA structural engineering software.
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Explore our Learn page for articles and videos that enhance your LAVA skills and provide the latest tips and best practices.
LAVA Help
Comprehensive documentation to help your users get started with LAVA Structural engineering software. Click here to find the comprehensive LAVA Help Manual, your go-to resource for detailed descriptions and step-by-step guidance on utilizing every feature of our program.
Why Choose LAVA Software?
LAVA, which stands for Lateral and Vertical Analysis software, is a structural engineering software focused on wood design and analysis for 1-6 story buildings. LAVA offers robust engineering calculations, providing an easy-to-read, hand-calculation output that is ready for submission to building officials.
Automatically Apply Deflection Criteria with LAVA
In this video, see how LAVA simplifies your structural design workflow by automatically generating and applying deflection criteria to beams—no manual input required. Want to override defaults? You can easily create custom deflection criteria for a specific beam as needed.…
LAVA Tackles the Options – and Scores!
Design Flexibility Made Simple Residential developers increase profitability by offering options—such as a bonus room, an extended kitchen, or an extra bedroom. The Challenge: Structural Changes For structural engineers, these seemingly minor changes can be brutal. Minor adjustments—like adding a…
Export Reactions in LAVA
Learn how to seamlessly export base reactions from LAVA into a TXT file format and view the detailed data. Perfect for structural engineers designing foundations or podiums for multi-story buildings, this tutorial walks you through the entire process, showcasing how…
Cantilever Diaphragms
Modern apartment buildings and hotels often feature expansive windows and open spaces on exterior walls, leaving little room for traditional shear walls. Cantilevered diaphragms are essential in these designs, efficiently transferring lateral loads to internal supports. With LAVA, designing cantilever…
Discontinuous Shear Walls
Simplify Complex Loads: How LAVA Handles Unstacked Lateral Walls In structural design, lateral wall placement and alignment can make or break the building design. When lateral walls aren’t perfectly stacked in a building, the transfer of lateral forces can create…
A Quick Tour of LAVA
This video will give you a quick tour of the workflow of LAVA and how to get results fast. LAVA, a comprehensive Windows-based structural engineering software designed for the intricate analysis and design of wood-framed structures. Leveraging cutting-edge technology and…
Stiffness vs Capacity in Shear Lines
In LAVA software, shear lines allow you to adjust the method to distribute the lateral force as Stiffness or Capacity based. SDPWS 4.3.3.4.1 requires ‘Shear distribution to individual shear walls in a shear wall line shall provide the same…
Got Change?
Changes are inevitable in wood design projects, but without an efficient workflow, they can lead to costly delays and missed deadlines. Spreadsheets, though popular, often fall short in handling project changes. Discover how LAVA streamlines your workflow, ensuring accuracy, adaptability, and time savings.
Creating Templates and Customizing the Interface in LAVA
Learn how to efficiently create templates and customize the interface in LAVA, our powerful software designed for structural engineers. In this tutorial, we guide you through the step-by-step process of building a template from scratch and adjusting the interface to…
LAVA: Revolutionizing Structural Wood Design
The only comprehensive structural engineering software solution for wood framed structures is finally here. LAVA, which stands for Lateral and Vertical Analysis software, is an indispensable tool for structural engineers focused on wood design and analysis for 1-6 story buildings.…