This app is not a toy; it ’ s a powerful, easy-to-use structural engineering calculator with ambitions to reach the clouds.

Image: Courtesy of Iproblue Tech

The developer, IProBlue Tech., Fort Lee, N.J., says [steel hd], for the iPad, is based on a database comprising American Institute of Steel Construction manuals. It also has libraries with all the structural-steel profiles available in the U.S., Canada and the U.K. An Android version is on the way.

The tools are parametric calculators based on the AISC libraries 13.2, 13.2-SI, 13.1.1, 13.1.1 SI, 13, LRFD 1 through 3, ASD 6 through 9 and historic sections. The $5.99 app also includes structural-steel calculators for the U.K. and Canada based on their standards.

Properties are displayed in English or metric units that can be converted with a click. A search function will correctly interpret “W16 x 89,” “W16x89” or “W1689” to locate the section or its closest approximation.

The iPhone version, [steel], offers only the American libraries. The Canadian and U.K. calculators are separate $5.99 apps among several specialty iPhone calculators offered by the company for architects, engineers and tradespeople.

For now, says company founder Przemek Olesinski, all are purely calculation apps, but he expects his director of technology, David Homes, to soon finish work on connections that will link decisions made using the calculators to structural engineering models in the cloud. “It’s going to happen this year,” Olesinski says.

www.iprobluetech.com