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Status Needs review
Created by Guest
Created on Jan 21, 2025

Lateral Drift Load Combinations for Wind

There seems to be a fundamental problem with lateral drift for wind in RAM Frame. Currently, accounting for lateral drift in accordance with ASCE 7, Appendix CC "Serviceability Considerations" requires some juggling. To follow this procedure, one must create a separate load case using the reduced wind speeds for the appropriate recurrence interval (I usually use 10 year) for standard buildings, which is fine. But when creating load combinations there is no set of combinations within the software that are appropriate for the section of the code which uses D+0.5L+Wa. The SERVICEABILITY combination reduces wind loads by 0.6, which only applies to member deflections and not lateral drift. So, I must create my own set of combinations using that formula. It would be helpful to make this less time consuming and confusing for the users.