Wood Studs - Reducing Calculated Deflection by 30%

Structural Engineering general discussion Wood Design
#1

QUESTION
We are dealing with the ever-increasing issue of brick veneer climbing higher than the typical 30ft max of yesteryear and it is causing our company to look into our designs to find out what we can be doing differently for these special cases. I am looking into deflection of wood studs backing brick veneer and ran into an old set of calcs within which the engineer reduced the calculated deflection by 30% before determining if it met the deflection criteria. Obviously this created a pretty large difference between The required M.O.I. that I calculated and that found using this old spreadsheet. I am not aware of where this “move” came from and am assuming it is some NDS or IBC/ASCE stipulation that I haven’t come across and was hoping someone a bit more seasoned might recognize and be able to explain it to me.

REPLIES

Wallache
Probably from IBC table 1604.3, note f.

I’ve taken the 0.42 factor to include the 0.6 wind load combo factor (i.e. 0.7x0.6=0.42)

SOURCE
https://www.eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=400822
Above is a snippet.

#2

Justification may be a lab-tested contribution of the brick matrix itself regarding deflection.

Never used to consider that - not conservative though - and what if the brick matrix cracks losing section in a strong event?

Personally, I don’t trust it, and would never use it. Better to be conservative than to design to the line testing nature.

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