How should I label piers for a wall with openings?
ANSWER: A suggested pier labeling scheme for walls with openings is given in Figure 1:
- Additional information is available through Help > Documentation > Shear Wall Design > General Design Information.
How are surface loading conditions applied to an area?
Answer: Loading conditions may be applied as follows:
- Mesh the area at appropriate locations and intervals using the options available through Edit > Mesh Areas.
- Concentrated loads – Apply concentrated moments and point loads to any node location by selecting Assign > Point Load.
- Line loads – For linear distributed loading, define a frame object with negligible structural properties, then draw these frames where line loads are to be applied. Draw line loads on the frame objects by selecting Assign > Frame loads > Distributed, then scale their magnitude according to tributary allocation.
- Area loads – Similarly, apply area loads by selecting Assign > Area loads > Uniform (Shell) or Uniform to Frame (Shell).