In structural design, one of the designer’s primary objectives is typically to minimize the weight of steel used in the member cross-sections. However, from a broader and more practical perspective, steel consumption is not limited to the steel incorporated into the final structural members; it also includes the steel consumed during fabrication, including both the utilized portion and the material lost as waste.

For example, if four plates, each 0.35 m wide, are cut from a plate with a width of 1.50 m, a total width of 0.10 m is wasted. Similarly, a project cost analysis based only on the weight of the final structural elements may indicate a requirement of 70 tonnes of steel, while in practice 80 tonnes of steel plate may be needed to manufacture those 70 tonnes of finished members.

For this reason, MkaPEB includes a section database with specially selected sections whose flange and web dimensions are determined such that eliminate fabrication waste, taking into account the widths of globally available steel plates.