Need help with understanding mezzanine loading
Need help with understanding mezzanine loading
(OP)
Hi,
It was recently brought up at the place I work that the mezzanine could possibly be overloaded. I calculated the point load on some 50 gallon barrels (the heaviest thing we have up there). Each barrel is 22.5" in diameter and weighs 200 kg. I calculated a load of ~160 lbs/ft^2. The mezzanine is specified to a max live load of 100 lbs/ft^2. My initial thought is that these barrels should not be up here, but the other engineer in the office told the boss that it is ok, nothing to worry about. Supposedly they specified these barrels when they built the mezzanine (before I came here), but didn't know the exact weights of them. I figured the engineer used water as a guess, but this still gives me ~151 lbs/ft^2. We store 12 of them on 2 rows of 6 almost against each other. There is very little chance of them all being full at one time. Should I be worried about this or could this be acceptable?
Thanks.
It was recently brought up at the place I work that the mezzanine could possibly be overloaded. I calculated the point load on some 50 gallon barrels (the heaviest thing we have up there). Each barrel is 22.5" in diameter and weighs 200 kg. I calculated a load of ~160 lbs/ft^2. The mezzanine is specified to a max live load of 100 lbs/ft^2. My initial thought is that these barrels should not be up here, but the other engineer in the office told the boss that it is ok, nothing to worry about. Supposedly they specified these barrels when they built the mezzanine (before I came here), but didn't know the exact weights of them. I figured the engineer used water as a guess, but this still gives me ~151 lbs/ft^2. We store 12 of them on 2 rows of 6 almost against each other. There is very little chance of them all being full at one time. Should I be worried about this or could this be acceptable?
Thanks.






RE: Need help with understanding mezzanine loading
Perhaps a sketch of the mezz, and the barrel locations? A little more info would go along way. Whats the mezz made from?
RE: Need help with understanding mezzanine loading
It is a concrete slab, and it looks to be 5 1/2" thick.
Sounds like it's probably nothing to worry about then?
Thanks.
RE: Need help with understanding mezzanine loading
RE: Need help with understanding mezzanine loading
Agree here. You need to hire someone to check it properly.
RE: Need help with understanding mezzanine loading
Where I have encountered this, I usually specify that all barrels be accessible from an aisle, thus limiting the problem of stacking them deep without rows. In your example, giving each barrel a full 24" square (rows of barrels 1-1/2" apart), without nesting barrels tightly, keeps you at 110 psf. But it's failure of the human element programs where things all too often go wrong.
RE: Need help with understanding mezzanine loading
Thanks for the input.
RE: Need help with understanding mezzanine loading
If the slab is the structure, and the concrete and associated reinforcement was cut randomly, it could well have made the original design irrelevant. You may well be dealing with a significant capacity problem, and the first sign of impending failure might be a crack, or it might well be a sudden collapse. The location and character of cracks, the location and size of the ductwork holes, and the overall structural system layout are all critical in evaluating your mezzanine. You should probably get that looked at since it is loaded at or near design capacity and has been modified.
This is why reputable engineers and doctors don't practice on the internet.