Irregular Diaphragm Design 5

[Revv]

Hey Guys,

So I'm a mid level structural engineer, however, I've always been kind of weak on diaphragm design and am really trying to improve. I've been having a really hard time finding good resources for dealing with things such as re-entrant corners, "notched" Diaphragms(a gap in the middle of an edge) etc. Do you guys have any good recommendations or advice on these things? What helped you understand it? The Current project I'm working on has just about all of these things as well as holes in the middle of the diaphragm. I'd love to calc this by hand and be confident I'm doing it correctly.

 

[SRCELL]

The Terry Malone book goes through some pretty thorough design examples.

 

[Aesur]

I agree with SRCELL, Terry Malone has some great examples published on the Wood Works website.

 

[Revv]

Thanks guys I ordered his book on Amazon and plan on working through it this weekend

 

[JoshPlumSE]

I agree with the others that Terry Malone's book is the best place to start. Once you understand his process and can repeat his examples, you should be much more comfortable.

However, I will say that I find his process to be a bit too complex for most design work. And, I tend to apply the same principles in simpler ways and using less details and less exact methods of calculation. Just personal preference..... maybe a little bit of laziness due to schedule / budget considerations.

 

[Aesur]

I agree with JoshPlumSE regarding the use of his method and simplification. While Terry's method is great and the most accurate I have seen to date, you will almost never meet a project budget using it due to complexity, therefore you will need to develop your own approach once you understand how to design these diaphragms.