Market and catalog

One country, one package of defaults

An LSF project does not start blank. Before the first wall, the project needs a section for each of the 14 roles (stud, track, header, floor joist, chord, purlin and the others), a steel, a stud spacing, the board loads and a wind standard. In CalcSteel all of this arrives together, in one package per country: the project market.

The package comes from the CalcSteel catalog. It also carries what comes later: the screws of each joint, the sheathing boards, the roll-forming machines and the files they read.

For the example house the answer is short: the market is Brazil, the only one with all 14 roles defined. This page shows the rest because the question comes up. A client with a project abroad, an IP that says somewhere else, a colleague who changed the chip by accident. Knowing what each country brings keeps you from calculating with a default that does not exist.

• 4: markets with their own package: Brazil, United States, Australia and New Zealand
• 14: section roles; only Brazil defines all 14
• 2: roles defined in the other three: stud and track
• 0: fields to fill in on the example house, in Brazil

From the catalog to the project settings

The market answers a question the engineer asks without noticing: what is sold and built here? In Brazil, the 90 mm stud in ZAR steel, the 400 or 600 mm module, the 11.1 mm OSB board and the 4.2 x 19 mm pan head screw. In the United States, another family of sections, another steel, another spacing. CalcSteel keeps these answers in the catalog, one package per country, and hands each project the package of its country.

Steel, module and wind change from country to country

In the market, the standard is a variable like the section: each country has its own. The Brazil row declares NBR 14762, the Brazilian standard for cold-formed steel design; the United States row declares AISI S100; Australia and New Zealand, AS/NZS 4600. What changes with it, in practice, is the steel you can use, the module the market sells and the wind standard. The examples use only the Brazilian standards.

The default ZAR-230

The default steel in Brazil is ZAR-230, with fy 230 and fu 310 MPa. It is not in Table 1: it enters through 4.1.3, because fu/fy = 310/230 = 1.35, above 1.08. The Brazil row declares NBR 15253, the Brazilian standard for galvanized LSF sections, as the source of its steel list.

The module

The 400 or 600 mm spacing in Brazil comes from a product study declared in the row itself, and matches the 1.20 m board. The United States uses 305, 406 and 610 mm, which are 12, 16 and 24 inches. Australia and New Zealand, 450 and 600 mm.

Brazil, and nothing to fill in

The 9 x 7 m single-story house, with a 2.80 m ceiling height, is in Brazil. The header chip reads Brazil · NBR 14762, the fabrication is Roll-formed on the FRAMECAD F325iT and the button at the end of the settings reads Finish: the market left no field empty.

What the Brazil row puts in the house, role by role. In a roll-formed project, the roles the machine forms get its section on top of the market: that is why the stud comes out as the 89 mm FRAMECAD section, and not the C 90 of the Brazilian catalog.

• 600 mm: default spacing
• 6000 mm: maximum bar for track and stud
• 2.80 m: default ceiling height
• 0: missing fields: Finish enabled

1. See where the chip came from

In a new project the market arrives by itself, in this order: the last choice made in this browser; the country of your internet connection; the country on your account. The first answer that exists wins. The choice is stored in the browser, so whoever changed the chip once sees the same country in every new project from then on.

2. Click the chip

The Project market list opens. Each row shows the country, the declared standard, the accepted spacings and the steels. The list has only the countries with their own package: Australia, Brazil, New Zealand and the United States.

3. Choose another country, if needed

A project with no walls switches at once. A project with members asks for confirmation first: it says how many members change section and how many stay as they are because the new market has no section for their role, and warns that spacing, steel, loads and wind standard change too. One Ctrl+Z undoes the whole switch.

4. Switch to the United States and open Structure

The United States row defines only two roles: track and stud, in the SSMA family. The other twelve turn amber with no default for this market: choose, and the tab gets the orange dot with 12. The steel becomes A1003 Type H and the spacing, 406 mm.

Look at the right side: the maximum bar and the whole sheathing (OSB 11.1 mm, fiber cement 10 mm, gypsum ST 12.5 mm) are the Brazilian ones. The United States row does not define these fields, and the project inherits them.

5. Change to Stick-built and go back to Structure

Without the machine on top, you see what the market really brings: 362S162-33 for the stud and 362T125-33 for the track, and nothing else. Changing the model sends the settings back to the Building envelope tab; go back to Structure to see the sections.

6. The button at the end reads 12 missing

On any tab, the Finish button turns gray and changes its text: 12 missing. Hover over it and the tip reads in full: "12 fields missing that the project market does not define". Changing the steel in the picker does not change the count, because the twelve missing fields are sections. The wind standard, here, came from the market: ASCE 7-22, with the United States map.

Country without a row: inherits Brazil, except the wind

The picker list has four countries, but the project can arrive with any other: through the internet connection of whoever opened it, or through the country on the account. Take Spain, which has no package of its own. It inherits the whole Brazil package: the 14 roles, the ZAR steels, the 600 mm spacing and the loads. Only one thing does not come along.

7. Open Wind action

The wind standard is not inherited: it is the one of the project country, and EN 1991-1-4, which covers all of Europe, does not come in by itself. The Standard field turns amber, with choose the standard, and the button reads 1 missing.

8. Choose the standard, then check the V₀

Choosing the standard clears the missing field. Next, check the V₀ and enter the one for the project site: the EN map shows Europe between 22 and 32 m/s. The pressure in the blue box follows the chosen standard and V₀.

Brazil and the United States side by side

Everything on this page was read from the CalcSteel catalog in October 2026. A field marked BR is inherited from Brazil.

Inheritance, the rule

A country without a row receives the whole Brazil row. A country with an incomplete row is completed field by field; pieces and joints, item by item. The section per role is not inherited: a role with no section from the country stays empty and counts as missing.

The catalog section

In Brazil, 15 C sections (90, 140 and 200 mm) and 15 U sections (92, 142 and 202 mm), from 0.80 to 2.00 mm, plus the hat section and the strap the row cites. In the FRAMECAD, Howick and SSMA sections, the catalog thickness is already the base steel, without the zinc.

Machines, files, details and screws

The machine is the same in any market; its sections come in on top of the market in the roles it forms.

When the button reads N missing

"N missing" counts the fields the market did not define and you have not filled in yet. Each missing field lives on a tab, which gets the orange dot with the number. Filling in the field clears it at once. On a new roll-formed project on the FRAMECAD:

1. I changed the steel and the number did not drop. The steel only clears a missing steel. Missing sections go away one by one, role by role, on the Structure tab.
2. Every new project opens in another country. The last choice in the picker is stored in the browser and wins over the internet country and the account country. Change the chip back once: the new choice takes over.
3. I switched countries and want to go back. A market switch is a single Ctrl+Z step: it brings back sections, steel, spacing, loads and wind as they were. After switching, read the Structure tab again.

The countries that are not on the list

Only four countries appear in the picker. A fifth country only reaches the project through the internet connection of whoever opened it or through the account country, and then it inherits Brazil. That has two readings, and both matter to the engineer:

What inheritance guarantees

The project is never left without sections, steel, loads or joint rules. Every country receives a complete package, and the project opens ready to draw.

What to check

That this package is sold in the country. A project in Portugal opens with Brazilian sections, ZAR steel and screws, and Finish only asks for the wind standard. Check section, steel and screw with the local supplier.

The market fills in; the calculation reads the settings

The market acts once, when the project receives the package or switches country. It writes numbers into the project settings. From then on, the calculation reads the settings as they are, and does not ask which country they came from.

The path, in one line

Project settings → header chip → check the country → if it is another, choose it from the list → Structure: choose the section for each amber row → Wind action: choose the standard and the V₀ of the site → Finish.

The example so far

• BR: project market
• 14: roles with a section
• 230 MPa: fy of ZAR-230
• 0: missing fields