How calculators integrate with the AI

Every calculator in the suite is available to the AI assistant as a tool it can run on your behalf. You can either open a calculator from the calculators page and fill it in yourself, or you can describe what you want to the assistant and let it pick the right tool.

A pump sizing example

Ask the assistant: “Size a pump to move 250 gpm of water at 60 feet of head.”

The assistant:

1. Recognises this as a pump sizing request.
2. Opens the pump sizing calculator.
3. Fills in flow, head, fluid properties for water at standard conditions, and any required efficiency assumption.
4. Runs the calculator.
5. Returns hydraulic power, brake horsepower, and a recommended motor size, along with the inputs it used so you can see exactly what went in.

If you reply “use 80 percent pump efficiency instead”, the assistant reruns the calculator with the new input and returns the updated result.

Why the calculators matter

A language model is good at language. It is not good at arithmetic, especially when arithmetic involves lookups, unit conversions, interpolation, and code based formulas. The calculators handle that side of the work, and the assistant handles the language side.

The result is deterministic. The same question with the same inputs returns the same numbers every time. You can reproduce any answer by opening the calculator yourself and entering the same inputs.

Calculator categories the AI can run

• Structural: steel, concrete, and wood member sizing and capacity checks.
• Mechanical: pumps, fans, heat exchangers, pipe sizing, pressure drop, and NPSH.
• Electrical: motor sizing, conductor sizing, voltage drop, conduit fill, and breaker selection.
• Chemical: mixing, reactor, distillation, and process flow tools.
• Civil: open channel flow, stormwater, and site drainage.
• Manufacturing: machining, welding, and material removal calculations.

The full list is on the calculators page, with a short description of each and the access tier required.

Calculators plus reference data

Calculators do not float on their own. They pull inputs from the reference library the same way a human engineer would pull them from a book. When you ask for a W12x26 beam check, the calculator does not ask you to type in section properties; it pulls the row from the AISC shapes table and uses it directly. This is why the AI assistant can answer design questions in a single turn without needing you to hand feed it every value.