A Beginner's Guide to ASCE 7-05

Chapter 5 - L: Live Loads

2007, T. Bartlett Quimby

Overview
Uniformly
Distributed and
Concetrated Loads

Section 5.4

Arrangement of Live Loads

Last Revised: 11/04/2014

Loads on
handrails, ASCE 7-05 Section 4.6 states "The full intensity of the
guardrails, grab
appropriately reduced live load applied only to a portion of a
bars, ladders and
structure or member shall be accounted for if it produces a more
vehicle barriers
unfavorable effect than the same intensity applied over the full
or member."
Arrangement structure
of
Live Loads
What this means is that you need to arrange the live load so as
Live Load to cause maximum effect in your members. You must design
Reduction your structural elements so that they have sufficient strength to
support all possible arrangements of live load. Consequently
Roof Live Load
your analysis needs to provide you with envelope diagrams for
Reduction each member. Envelope diagrams are internal force diagrams
that envelop all the possible values of force at each location
Crane Loadsalong the member. So examples are used below to explain
method for determining envelopes.
Example
Problems This can seem daunting task as you need to do multiple load
cases to account for the various loadings on your structural
system. For statically determinate structures, it is often easy to
Homework
Problemsestablish critical loading scenarios for shear, moment, reactions,
and deflection. Unfortunately for continuous, statically
indeterminate structures this is not so obvious and the use of
influence lines becomes extremely useful.
References
In most structural analysis texts methods are presented for both
detailed analytical and approximate influence lines. You will find
Report Errorsthat
or approximate methods will quickly identify where to place
Make Suggestions
your loads. Let's look at a couple of general cases for shear,

moment, and reactions.

Consider the continuous beam show in Figure 5.4.1.
Figure 5.4.1
Sample Beam #1

The likely critical locations for shear and moment are indicated
as the points shown on the beam. To determine where to place
live load so as to cause maximum effect at any of these points
you need to decide which effect (shear or moment) you are
interested in then draw the influence lines for that point. To get
the upper bound of your internal force diagram analyze your
structure under loading placed where the influence line is
positive. To get the lower bound of your internal force diagram
analyze your structure under loading placed where the influence
line is negative.
Figure 5.4.2 shows the influence lines for shear and moment at
point 5 and the associated critical load diagrams. Notice that
span 1 is only partially loaded when considering shear. All the
other spans are fully loaded. This will always be the case for
shear, which results in an infinite number of load cases. In
practice, however, shear is rarely the controlling load case for
members subjected to distributed loads. Also, the critical shear
is normally near the supports where the partial loading is close
to a full span loading, so common practice is to consider only
fully loaded spans and that the results will be close enough that
the designer can feel assured that the shear limit states are
satisfied. In cases where shear becomes a controlling limit state,
then a more accurate partial span loading is in order.
Figure 5.4.2
Influence & Loading at Point 5

Figure 5.4.3 shows the influence lines for shear and moment at
point 2 and the associated critical load diagrams.
Figure 5.4.3
Influence & Loading at Point 2

If we continue drawing influence lines we soon learn that there

are four different full span load cases that need be analyzed in
order to determine maximum shear and moment at every
location.
Figure 5.3.4 shows the four load cases and the associated
moment diagrams (the moment diagrams are approximate... will
do more accurate ones at some future date, but this should be
good enough to get the point across!). Finally, the moment
envelope is found by superimposing the four moment diagrams.
The envelope values are the maximum and minimum moments
at each point. A similar diagram can be constructed for shear.
Figure 5.3.4

Load Cases & Moment Diagrams

This method can also be used on continuous two and three

dimensional frames as well.
Figures 5.3.5 and 5.3.6 show the application for determining
envelope moments at two different points. Additional loading
cases need to be developed for other points in the structure if all
necessary load arrangements are to be identified.
Figure 5.3.5
2D Frame Loadings for Moment at "A"

Figure 5.3.6
2D Frame Loadings for Moment at "B"

For three dimensional structures the load is applied to bays of

the building in various patterns. One such pattern is depicted in
Figure 5.3.7. The result is that you end up with a multitude of
cases if live load to determine the maximum effect on the
structure.
Figure 5.3.7
A 3D Loaded Frame

Another method, that I call influential superposition, has been

developed that can eliminate the guess work regarding where to
place the loads and is well suited to numerical analysis. A short
paper on how influential superposition works can be downloaded
here.