Lateral design for high plane aspect ratio
Lateral design for high plane aspect ratio
(OP)
I am working on the lateral design of a 4-stroy residential construction, which has the first story built with CMU, and upper stories with wood frame. Since located in city, the house has a plane size of 18’x70’. Furthermore, the owner wants to make a big opening at the front 18’ wall for commercial.
Since IRC is not applicable, are there any empirical or conventional design methods for this kind of building? Any information and/or suggestion on lateral support system will be greatly appreciated.
BTW: The site has a basic wind speed of 90 mph, and a seismic design category of B.
Since IRC is not applicable, are there any empirical or conventional design methods for this kind of building? Any information and/or suggestion on lateral support system will be greatly appreciated.
BTW: The site has a basic wind speed of 90 mph, and a seismic design category of B.






RE: Lateral design for high plane aspect ratio
For the front wall, you'd have to use some sort of open, moment frame system with two or three columns and a cross beam at the top of the first floor. This creates a soft lower story which puts you into an irregular building per seismic criteria, but with a B - it may not be a big deal.
RE: Lateral design for high plane aspect ratio
DaveAtkins
RE: Lateral design for high plane aspect ratio
I am wondering if I could use some CMU buttress to take the lateral load for this case?
RE: Lateral design for high plane aspect ratio