I working with clients on a residential floor plan design that includes radius or curved wood stud wall construction.  I am unsure how the current IRC building code views such construction particulary in terms of lateral wall bracing.  Does anyone know where I can obtain information concerning this topic?  Here is some of the design info:  The radius walls are 10 feet and 9 feet tall constructed of 2x6 studs with (5) 2'x6' windows approximately spaced @ 8" o.c.  Please see the attached sketch.

If you are speaking of laterally, I believe this has been discussed in the forums here before regarding walls angled to the application of the wind or seismic force.  If not, I see no problems here.

Considering the lateral problem though, I usually try to restrict to 45 degree application and take the projected length of the wall parallel to the force for my shear wall length.  As the two curved sections may be greater than my arbitratry 45 degree limit, I would have to think about that some more.

Mike McCann
MMC Engineering

Thanks Mike.  I am primarily looking at the lateral resistance due to wind loading in a 110 mph zone.

Is there a beam that extends over the porch from the side of the bump out?  If so, you could use that as a drag strut and pass the load to the cantilevered diaphragm over the porch.  Else you could consider the LVL over the Master as a drag strut to transfer the load to the back wall and consider the roof over the bump out as cantilevered.  It doesn't look like you would have a tremendous amount of force in that wall due to the LVL called out on the plan, so maybe you would be comfortable passing some load to the curved walls.  There are many ways to skin the cat....
Scott
www.dbssinc.com

Thanks Scott.  I will take a look at your suggested solutions.