What SCAFSOFT calculates
SCAFSOFT is design software for scaffolds and for anchoring them to the wall, covering the whole section in a single file: from the scaffold type and the manufacturer’s system, through the wind and service loads, down to the anchor that goes into the background wall. It is intended for structural engineers, scaffold designers and scaffolding contractors who have to produce a signed calculation.
What sets it apart is the background wall. Most scaffolding software assumes concrete and stops there. SCAFSOFT asks where the anchor really lands — concrete, the concrete frame, or the block infill zone, and which block type — because that is the difference between a tie that holds and a tie that pulls out.
Quick start, project details and standard
The software opens with a quick start from a starting template, and the project details and standard module defines the elevation or section, the designer or engineer, and the design standard. Defining the elevation and the section at this early stage lets you calculate a project as a series of sections rather than as one theoretical scaffold.
Scaffold type and scaffold system
The type and system module defines the scaffold type, the scaffold system by manufacturer, the material and components, the tube manufacturing process and the load-bearing system of the type selected. It also handles manufactured shoring — support scaffold — and not only working scaffold.
The tube manufacturing process is no side issue: it changes the properties the check is based on. A tool that takes "tube" as a single uniform input gives up that distinction.
Geometry, service loads and mandatory requirements — SI 1139
The geometry is defined by the scaffold height and the section length. Alongside it the service loads are entered and the working platform and the guardrail are defined, together with the diagonal bracing in the plane of the facade — the element that stabilises the section in the facade direction, and whose omission is a common cause of collapse.
The mandatory requirements module works to SI 1139, the Israeli standard for scaffolds. It does not rest on the designer’s judgement alone; it sets out the requirements the calculation has to satisfy.
Wind, sheeting and base — SI 414 / EN 12811
The wind load is calculated to SI 414 and EN 12811, and beside it sits the scaffold sheeting module. Sheeting is where scaffolds actually fail: a tarpaulin or a net turns an open frame that wind passes through into a closed surface that picks up the full pressure and delivers it into the ties. SCAFSOFT treats sheeting as an input that changes the load, not as an item of equipment.
The base and ground transfer module closes the lower end of that same chain.
The background wall, the ties and the anchor
The anchoring substrate is defined explicitly: concrete, the concrete frame, the block infill zone and the block type. On that basis the ties and the anchorage to the wall are determined and the anchor is selected, in the AAS · STONE anchor engine.
This is the practical difference from other tools. In a typical Israeli building a substantial part of the facade is block infill between columns and beams, and the man fixing the tie on site does not always hit the frame. Calculate everything as if it were concrete and you get a result that does not describe the wall the anchor is going into.
Suspended scaffolds, safety factors and results
SCAFSOFT covers suspended scaffolds as well: the outrigger height — the top anchorage down to the support, the number of suspension ropes, the tower environment, the winch type and the dynamic factor.
The dynamic factor is what separates a suspended scaffold from a standing one. A platform travelling on a winch does not carry static load alone, and starting or stopping raises the force in the ropes and in the top anchorage. The number of suspension ropes and the winch type enter the calculation as input, not as an assumption behind the scenes. The safety factors and checks module defines the factors everything is checked against, and the results module presents the scaffold selected, the geometry, the service and wind loads, the sheeting, the base, the background wall, the ties and the anchor — alongside the elevation or section, the designer and the design standard.
Scope
This software applies to construction in Israel only. It is written to the Israeli standard SI 1139, and the calculator interface itself is in Hebrew.