Mapping the Eurocodes

Have you ever wondered why the Eurocodes are so damn annoying to use? I know I have. On my litany of things I hate about the Eurocodes are the way it always feels like you need to get 25 documents together before you can even begin to design anything. Finally, when bored on the train, I decided to see just how valid my complaints were, and how bad the problem is.

Let me present to you an interactive (click on the preview to browse) network graph mapping the references between the Eurocodes:

About the Data

For this map a ‘reference’ is an explicit mention of the code number (e.g. EN 1994-1-2). To avoid picking up the introduction that lists all the Eurocodes, I have excluded any references before the “1 General” header. To make the map clearer I have also ignored general ‘family’ references (e.g. mentions of the EN 1994 suite, rather than a specific part). I have also excluded NA references, etc. as it’s complicated enough without adding the non-EN documents you require.

Believe it or not, I didn’t painstakingly comb through every page of the Eurocodes to collect this data. I made a bot to do it. If you want to know how I made this map, you can check out the source code for the data extractor and plot data file builder here: on my GitHub. Unfortunately this means that the four Eurocodes PDFs with, inexplicably, encoded text have been omitted from this map:

• EN 1995-1-1
• EN 1993-6
• EN 1993-1-10
• EN 1991-1-4

But I never liked them anyway!

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So next time you set sail on a voyage through the Eurocodes; don’t forget the map (or set it as your wallpaper!).