When designing a building, various components come into play when trying to determine the load capacity of steel flooring.  In order to better understand what these components are, we will examine the two basic types of loads; gravity loads and horizontal loads.

Horizontal loads account for seismic activity and wind.  This includes not only the wind that will be pushing on one side of a building but the wind that will be creating suction on the opposite side (pulling force).  Both activities cause the building to transfer the horizontal loads onto the roof or steel flooring.  Steel flooring must have the means to transfer the load to a lateral load resisting system.  Structural engineers can provide more detail and analysis on the design of lateral frame options available for horizontal loads.

Gravity loads include all vertical forces against steel flooring, such as gravity itself.  Gravity loads are grouped by dead loads and live loads.  Dead loads refer to the weight of permanent objects of a building, such as steel flooring.  Live loads account for things such as occupancy and furniture, things that are constantly changing.  Beams and purlins (horizontal structures) begin the support of gravity loads.  Structural engineers must be contacted and are required to calculate exactly what type and how many supports are needed for building design.

As you can see, many factors come into play when including steel flooring in a building.  Structural engineers must be contacted in order to ensure that the steel flooring within a building can handle the load flow.  For more detailed information on structural engineering and load flow, click here.

 “Designing with Structural Steel a Guide for Architects Second Edition” http://www.aisc.org/uploadedFiles/Steel_Solutions_Center/Conceptual/My_Project/Files/ArchitectsGuide.pdf

Filed under: Steel Flooring by Beth Faraci Social tagging: gravity loads > horizontal loads > steel flooring