Residential Building Design for High-Wind Coastal Areas

In Residential Building Design for High-Wind Coastal Areas, you'll learn ...

• The three most common primary failure modes for buildings
• The four primary structural building systems used in residential construction and their relative merits
• How to apply a load path through a building to the foundation, based on site-specific design loads
• How to calculate loads and stresses at connections and components along the load path

Overview

Preview a portion of this course before purchasing it.

Credit: 8 PDH

Length: 165 pages

This course will review the design process required for residential buildings (one to three-story) to withstand hurricanes and other severe natural hazard events.

The design process starts with determining site-specific design loads (forces), which is outside the scope of the course. For guidance on determining site-specific design loads, refer to pertinent sections of the International Residential Code.

After determining all of the site-specific design loads (forces), the process involves the following steps:

• Determining the building’s foundation, structural frame, and envelope
• Determining the connections between individual elements
• Determining the elevation, placement, and support for utilities
• Selecting the appropriate materials

In this course the design method is Allowable Stress Design (ASD), so there are factors of safety (FS) built into the development of the material stresses and the forces at the connections. This design method has been chosen because (ASD) continues to be the predominant design method in light-frame, residential, wood construction.

The course concentrates on determining the actual forces at connections and stresses on specific components, which are applied through vertical and horizontal load paths. The entire design process is based on the fundamental premise that anticipated service and natural hazard loads can and must be transferred through the building in a continuous path to the supporting soils.

Any weakness in that continuous path is a potential point of failure of the building, and any failure creates the possibility for large property losses and the potential for loss of life.

Specific Knowledge or Skill Obtained

This course teaches the following specific knowledge and skills:

• Which structures have the highest risk of overturning failure
• Why pile-supported structures are susceptible to shear failure
• The four primary structural building systems used in residential construction
• The relative merits of platform framing, balloon framing, post-and-beam framing and concrete/masonry
• How building layout and architectural shapes affect resistance to wind, flood and seismic loads
• How to apply a load path through a building to the foundation, based on the site-specific loads
• How to calculate forces at connections along the load path
• How to calculate stresses in materials along the load path
• Calculation of net uplift force and at each roof connection
• Calculation of overturning moment
• Calculation of sliding resistance of foundation walls and footing
• Nail and screw spacing requirements for roofing systems
• How to calculate forces and validate the foundation design
• Alternate load paths susceptible to failure, such as front porch uplift and lateral loads on a gable wall
• Pile foundation bracing methods
• Design of breakaway wall enclosures for sheds and other structures located below the base flood elevation
• Selection of mechanical connectors
• Relative merits of wood, steel, concrete and masonry building materials
• Fire protection, corrosion and UV-degradation considerations
• Designing for windborne missiles and other building envelope breaches
• Design of exterior mounted mechanical equipment
• Design of decks, gazebos and other appurtenant structures

Certificate of Completion

You will be able to immediately print a certificate of completion after passing a multiple-choice quiz consisting of 60 questions. PDH credits are not awarded until the course is completed and quiz is passed.