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🏗️ Break the Frame

A fixed-base L-frame carries a load at its tip. Pick your column's cross-section — too small and it fails under real stress, too big and it's needlessly heavy. Find the lightest section that still survives. Real stiffness-matrix physics, real stress checks — nothing here is faked.

Scenario

Fixed-base steel L-frame, S235 steel (Fy=235 MPa).

P = 8 kN tip load

Column height 3.0 m, beam length 4.0 m.

Your Design

Live Result

Demand/Capacity Ratio
Tip Displacement
Weight Score (lower = better)
Best Safe Weight This Session
🎯 Goal: get DCR as close to 1.0 as possible from below — that's the lightest safe design. DCR > 1.0 means it breaks.
This game runs the exact same 2D frame stiffness solver (engine/frame-solver.jssolve2DFrame) verified elsewhere on this platform against three independent methods. The stress check is a standard combined axial+bending check (σ = N/A + M/W) against S235 steel's yield strength — a simplified check (no buckling, no safety factor beyond DCR≤1.0) for game clarity, not a substitute for real structural design.

Method

Stressσ = N/A + M/W, combined axial and bending stress on a rectangular section, checked against Fy=235 MPa (S235 steel).
Weight scoreProportional to cross-section area × total frame length — a simplified stand-in for material weight, not a real fabricated-weight calculation.
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