COMPUTERS AND STRUCTURES, INC.

, BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA DECEMBER 2001

STEEL FRAME DESIGN UBC-ASD
Technical Note
Design Load Combinations

The design load combinations are the various combinations of the load cases
for which the structural members and joints need to be designed or checked.
For the UBC97-ASD code, if a structure is subjected to dead load (DL), live
load (LL), wind load (WL), and earthquake induced load (EL) and considering
that wind and earthquake forces are reversible, the following load combina-
tions may need to be defined (UBC 1612.3):

DL (UBC 1612.3.1 12-7)

DL + LL (UBC 1612.3.1 12-8)

DL WL (UBC 1612.3.1 12-9)

DL + 0.75LL 0.75 WL (UBC 1612.3.1 12-11)

DL EL/1.4 (UBC 1612.3.1 12-9)

0.9 DL EL/1.4 (UBC 1612.3.1 12-10)
DL + 0.75 LL 0.75 EL/1.4 (UBC 1612.3.1 12-11)

These are also the default design load combinations in the program whenever
the UBC97-ASD code is used. The user should use other appropriate load
combinations if roof live load is separately treated, if other types of loads are
present, or if pattern live loads are to be considered.

When designing for combinations involving earthquake and wind loads, allow-
able stresses are NOT increased by a factor of 4/3 of the regular allowable
value (UBC 1612.3.1, 2209.3).

Live load reduction factors can be applied to the member forces of the live
load case on an element-by-element basis to reduce the contribution of the
live load to the factored loading. See Technical Note Overwrites Steel Frame
Design UBC-ASD for more information.

It is noted here that whenever special seismic loading combinations are

required by the code for special circumstances, the program automatically
generates those load combinations internally. The following additional seismic

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Steel Frame Design UBC-ASD Design Load Combinations

load combinations are frequently checked for specific types of members and
special circumstances.

1.0 DL + 0.7 LL o EL (UBC 2213.5.1.1.)

0.85 DL o EL (UBC 2213.5.1.2)

where o is the seismic force amplification factor, which is required to account

for structural overstrength. The default value of o is taken as 2.8 in the pro-
gram. However, o can be overwritten in the Preferences to change the de-
fault and in the Overwrites on a member-by-member basis. If any member is
assigned a value for o, the change of o in the Preferences will not modify
the o of the individual member for which o is assigned, unless the member
had been selected. The guidelines for selecting a reasonable value can be
found in UBC 1630.3.1 and UCB Table 16-N. Other similar special design load
combinations described in Technical Notes Seismic Requirements Steel Frame
Design UBC-ASD and Joint Design Steel Frame Design UBC-ASD.

Those special seismic load combinations are internal to program. The user
does NOT need to create additional load combinations for those load combi-
nations. The special circumstances for which the load combinations are addi-
tionally checked are described as appropriate in the other Technical Notes. It
is assumed that any required scaling (such as may be required to scale re-
sponse spectra results) has already been applied to the program load cases.

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