Lack of Good Error Reporting in solve_for_reaction_loads in Beam Class

[mvg2002]

As also described in this comment.

When using solve_for_reaciton_loads in the wrong way in the beam class the output will be IndexError: tuple index out of range. It doesn't matter what the problem is. The user doesn't know what went wrong when trying to calculate the reaction loads.

The line that outputs this message is:

solution = list((linsolve([shear_curve, moment_curve] + slope_eqs
                        + deflection_eqs, (C3, C4) + reactions).args)[0])

The error message will be the same when:

1. there is a mechanism
2. when there are no *reactions given as input
3. when the wrong *reactions are given as input
   There are probably a lot more possible ways to get the same error message.

As stated in this comment this method can be improved by adding some try and except statements to give more detailled error messages. This will make it easier for the user to find the problem in their code.