Loads On Architectural and Civil Engineering Structures
Building codes require that structures be designed and built to safely resist all actions that they are likely to face during their service life, while remaining fit for use. Minimum loads or actions are specified in these building codes for types of structures, geographic locations, usage and materials of construction. Dynamic Loads Structural loads are split into categories by their originating cause. Of course, in terms of the actual load on a structure, there is no difference between dead or live loading, but the split occurs for use in safety calculations or ease of analysis on complex models as follows:
To meet the requirement that design strength be higher than maximum loads, Building codes prescribe that, for structural design, loads are increased by load factors. These load factors are, roughly, a ratio of the theoretical design strength to the maximum load expected in service. They are developed to help achieve the desired level of reliability of a structure based on probabilistic studies that take into account the load's originating cause, recurrence, distribution, and static or dynamic nature.
Read more about this topic: Structural Load
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“The American who has been confined, in his own country, to the sight of buildings designed after foreign models, is surprised on entering York Minster or St. Peter’s at Rome, by the feeling that these structures are imitations also,—faint copies of an invisible archetype.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)