Lateral Restraint provided by wood beam system in a masonry pier.

[sponton]

Hiya,


I'm designing a wood building that has some Decks that are held partly by the wood structure and partly by masonry piers. When it comes to the analysis of the Pier I don't know if I can take the length of the floor-to-floor as the effective length. In my opinion woods doesn't really provide does much lateral restraining but I think if I don't take it like that i'm going to end up with a rather chunky column per se. Any advise on the analysis or what you would guys usually would do?

 

[KootK]

I'd be happy to use the deck to brace the pier so long as the deck itself is laterally stabilized and the connection to the pier is robust.

I like to debate structural engineering theory -- a lot. If I challenge you on something, know that I'm doing so because I respect your opinion enough to either change it or adopt it.