February 24, 2021

Video: Applying Tapered Area Loads in RISAFloor

RISAFloor enables you to consider the loads imposed on your structure due to the drifting effects of snow. Tapered area loads in RISAFloor are ideal for modeling this surcharge load due to snow drifting since the loading is approximated by a triangle.

Tags: RISAFloor, New, Area Load, Snow Load

November 17, 2011 | Loads, RISAFloor, New

How Do I Assign Drift Snow Loads to the Roof in RISAFloor?

RISAFloor has the ability to apply tapered snow loads on your building’s roof to simulate drift snow loads. Go to the roof framing level in your model and select Draw Area Loads from the Drawing toolbar. This will open the Create Area Loads dialogue box. Select the Tapered Area Loads option and enter in your Base and Peak Magnitude values for your load. Select SL (Snow Load) as the load category and select PY as the Direction. There are three options for Direction; PY, y and Y. Y represents the global Y direction, y represents the local y direction of the members and PY is the projected load in the global Y direction. See "Using Projected Loads in RISA-3D" for more information on how projected loads are applied. Click Apply and select the four points that will make up the perimeter of your snow load. Note that the first two points you select will be the base of the tapered load and the last two points will be the peak. These tapered area loads can be drawn as any four sided polygon and are not required to be rectangular or square. To view your area load in an isometric view…

November 9, 2016 | Loads, RISAFloor, New

How to verify loads graphically in RISAFloor

RISAFloor does not record the applied area loads in a spreadsheet. To simplify modeling, it instead assumes a default area load over the entire diaphragm area. Additionally, you are free to apply area loads beyond the default loads. Whatever is drawn last will be considered the applied loading unless you are using an additive area load which would then be additive to the loads drawn “underneath” it. For more information about additive area loads, read the Therefore, to verify the applied loading, you must do it graphically using the Show Area Load Types toggle button from the Window toolbar. RISAFloor includes three very helpful graphical viewing options for the area loads: 1. View all the applied loading, including the default area load. 2. View only the applied area load (default is hidden). 3. View the combined area loads to see how the load will actually be applied in each load combination. This option includes a legend to show the factored magnitudes of the applied loading. You can also hover your cursor over any area and see the applied Area Load reported in the Status Bar. Use this information to compare to your input loading and load combinations to verify the…

August 19, 2020 | New Release, New, RISACalc, Joists

Steel Joist Design now Available in RISACalc

Open web steel joist design is now available in RISACalc per the SJI 43rd/44th and 42nd Editions! The available joist series include K-Series, LH-Series, DLH-Series, SLH-Series (42nd Edition only), and KCS joists. After creating a joist, you can analyze either an existing steel joist shape by selecting ‘Explicit’ or allow RISACalc to design the steel joist size based on your loading and joist series by choosing ‘Optimize’. Available steel joist shapes are filtered using the new ‘Filter by Length’ feature. With this feature turned on, only sizes with acceptable design spans which exceed the input length will be listed in the Shape drop down. The analysis for steel joists compares the applied loads as well as self-weight to the allowable joist capacity determined from the standard load and span tables from SJI. Steel joist design in RISACalc considers a 2” bearing seat length on either end of the member per SJI. These values are all reported in the Calculations section of the Detail Report. In addition to uniformly loaded joists, RISACalc also supports joists with special loading conditions like non-uniform or concentrated loads. For special loading considerations, you can specify a KCS joist or you can even select a standard…