Why Hurmet?

Hurmet is a rich-text editor that can perform and display live calculations. Why use Hurmet instead of some other calculation method?

Reason #1: Correctness

Picture this situation: You are an engineer, doing a calculation in a spreadsheet. It’s really, really important that the result is correct. In the spreadsheet, you look at the result of your calculation and you see something like looks like this: $2.78$

When you wrote the formula for that calculation, did you make any mistakes? When the spreadsheet plugged in a value for a variable, did it plug in the correct value? Are you sure? Don’t you want to check?

Hurmet solves this problem. With Hurmet, the formula is always visible, even in the printed output. So are all the values that Hurmet assigns to variables. So your calculation now looks like this:

$M = \frac{w L^{2}}{8} = \frac{(252 lbf⁄ft) (9.4 ft)^{2}}{8} = 2.78 k \cdot ft$

With Hurmet, you get to see what your calculation is doing. So you can get it right.

Reason #2: Communication

An engineering calculation is not complete when you have demonstrated a result to yourself. You must also communicate your work to others. Among those others are:

the designer with whom you are working
the designer’s checker
your checker
the engineer-of-record (who may or may not be the same person as your checker)
the official who issues a building permit
yourself, five years from now when the client wants a modification

Everyone on that list is busy. They don’t have time to finish work that is only partly written down. They don’t have time to decipher cryptic comments. You need to be complete. You need to be clear.

You need to convey the calculations you have done and the values you have used. The work should be annotated with descriptions that guide the reader through your chain of thought. A calculation should be at least as detailed as this snippet:

Check shear

$V = \frac{w L}{2} = \frac{(252 lbf⁄ft) (9.4 ft)}{2} = 1.18 kips$ , shear

$V_{allow} = \frac{1}{Ω_{v}} \cdot 0.6 F_{y} t_{w} d = \frac{1}{1.67} \cdot (0.6) (36 ksi) (0.2 in) (6 in) = 15.5 kips$ $> V, ok$

Reason #3: Unit-Aware Calculations

In 1983, Air Canada Flight 143 ran out of fuel in midair. It had refueled incorrectly because a calculation contained a unit-conversion error. Before you scoff, know that this sort of thing can easily slip into a calculation. It’s a problem.

Hurmet calculations can include units-of-measure. And it does unit conversions automatically. If you want to mix metric and imperial units, go ahead. Then specify that the result be written in units of your choice. Let unit-conversion errors be a thing of the past.

$200 lbf⁄ft \cdot 100 m⁄min \cdot 2 hrs = 35, 025 kN$

Incompatible units return an error message:

$2 meters + 3 hours = Error. Adding incompatible units.$

Reason #4: Rapid Adjustment

Need to make a change? No problem. Re-define a variable with a new value. Hurmet will immediately recalculate all the dependencies.