FILLING IN THE MISSING PIECES - HOW TO LOAD ROOF PROFILES USING ASCE7

CONTINUING EDUCATION - 1 PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT HOUR

OUTLINE

Cold-formed steel (CFS) trusses are designed to resist a variety of environmental loads such as live loads, dead loads, snow loads. wind loads and seismic loads. As engineers, we turn to the ASCE 7 standard to find loading solutions. While it may seem like ASCE 7 has all the answers, there are some missing puzzle pieces. It is the engineer’s responsibility to fill in those missing pieces by interpreting ASCE 7 in situations that are not explicitly covered, and then apply and specify the load accordingly.

In this presentation, we will go through a quick review of the snow and wind provisions of ASCE 7. We will then explore how to apply these provisions to our modern-day roof profiles. We will provide a careful review of several conditions that will highlight the drawbacks of ASCE 7. The result of this analysis will be a rational interpretation of the standard on how we can load the roof. Finally, we will review some available literature that may help with wind and snow loading.

ABOUT THE PRESENTER

Bill Babich, P.E.
TrusSteel

Bill Babich, P.E. is the director of engineering for TrusSteel, a provider of cold-formed steel truss engineering and technology utilizing the proprietary TrusSteel system. He has been involved in the prefabricated truss industry for 36 years and specifically with the CFS industry since 1997. Bill is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), the AISI Committee on Framing Standards (COFS) and the Cold-Formed Steel Engineers Institute (CFSEI). He is the former chairman of the AISI COFS Truss Subcommittee and the CFSEI Executive Committee.