Building Masses vs. Dead Loads

Seismic building masses and dead loads to counteract overturning resistance must be entered separately and are generated separately, even though the these two types of loads represent different applications of the same building mass. This is because the program does not yet handle the vertical distribution of loads, and there is no way of knowing how an area load on a floor is distributed to the supporting walls.

The program therefore does not include the "building masses" when determining overturning forces and does not consider the "dead loads" when generating seismic loads.

The program identifies generated dead loads from wall self-weight for use in hold-down effect factor J_hd calculations. If you wish to include these dead load loads for that purpose, but rely on a floor partition weight for interior wall building masses, then we recommend generating both dead loads and building masses from wall self-weight, then deleting the building masses before generating seismic loads.