Safety factors are required for retaining walls and use ASD combinations which uses allowable pressures, therefore the building official is correct, ultimate pressures need to be converted to allowable and then the safety factor applies on top of that. I don't know what value to use for ultimate...
I'm with the others here, the anchors look like the weak point. I would have at least had heavy hex headed anchors for anything with reasonable tension or moment. J-bolts aren't that great in tension. A single 3/4" dia. J bolt with 12" embed with tension only is going to give you about 3700 lbs...
Going from a flat roof to many rows of open frames in a sawtooth layout will most definitely change roof uplift, however as you have said, probably not a big concern for uplift itself, the issue is in the fact that the OP said it's a ballasted system, which means no physical attachment and they...
Sounds to me like they are just going through a list, looking for something to comment on. I would be pissed I had to waste my time, on the flip side, it's easy to do for 12 pages. I have turned in 5000+ page calculations before without an index (whoops) and had no issue and rarely include an...
As I have done many ballast and non-ballast solar system designs many years ago, including roof checks, I suggest you get the final ballast weights and that they use a company that has a ballast system that relies on wind tunnel testing as many of the larger outfits that make racking do. There...
What orientation are the solar panels? Flat to the roof, sloped to the roof? What are your concerns, solar panels are very light, especially compared to concrete, could the IEBC be used by chance to show you are barely increasing the stresses?
A few thoughts on this:
1. Lock the Y rotation as a reaction on each pinned base, you will then see the reaction is 0, sometimes this is just an annoyance that comes up in RISA 3D.
2. Column M7 is set to pin at the top, remove that as the beams framing in are set to pins this is why N8 wants to...
I have always had an issue with this approach because it seems to me that the old Chapter D checks still apply for side face blowout etc. However I could maybe buy it if you have equal area adjacent reinforcing to lap too that drags down to the foundation, in which case you are really a lap...
This sound like you are creating a tie beam but using the slab reinforcing in lieu of a separate beam below the slab, in which case it's a constant tension member and I believe per code requires mech or welded splices not allowing for lapped.
I don't follow your thought here, are these dowels across a joint only, if so the way I read the code is you would have a constant tension member and therefore require continuous reinforcing or mechanical/welded splices in the zone in which you intend to grade for friction resistance due to slab...
Maybe some sort of foam or grout injection could be used to stabilize the soils a bit better, it's often use for jacking up foundations and roadways where soils have settled.
SSMA when I use SSMA shapes, ie wall studs and sometimes floor or roof framing, AISI when I use members similar to PEMB's, ie Z and CEE shapes for things like purlins and wall girts. I haven't encountered any challenges or confusion thus far from contractors, other than some like to list gages...
There is one engineer we work with who is amazing at doing preliminary truss designs for projects and has a side business doing truss repairs, we use and refer him often on projects that need truss repairs or strengthening.
Wow, my site visit is a min $750 now days, including travel time and then I would be anther $1000 to $1500 on top of that for any sketches or calcs based on min fees and if they agree up front to bundle with the site visit.
