Simpson Strongwall

[home builder rob]

Does anyone know if a Strong wall can be installed on a second story without another strong wall below it? It appears as if the Simpson website shows that a strong wall can be installed on a second story only if there is a strong wall directly below it. Can I just design a beam and have the strong wall sit on it?

 

[BAretired]

No reason why not but if there is no strong wall directly below it, there must be a shear wall somewhere below it. The strong wall would need to be properly connected to the beam and the beam would need to be adequately connected at each end to resist tension or compression.

BA

 

[dhengr]

Home builder rob:
As much as you hate the thought of it, you should probably hire a local Structural Engineer to give you some advice on this one. He/she can see the actual conditions on your plans, or at your site and advise you accordingly. We can’t do this with so little meaningful engineering design info. A Strongwall can be installed at the second level, but you still need some means of getting those loads and forces down to the ground/foundation. So, you need that lower level Strongwall or a beam and columns to accomplish that.

 

[EDub24]

Technically you can do whatever you want With that said the Strong Wall is a shear wall meant to transfer lateral wind or seismic loads to the foundation. If you don’t have another Strong Wall or any other type of shear wall or braced frame below you’ll have a soft story. Google soft story failure and you’ll see why that’s not a good thing...

 

[TehMightyEngineer]

What the others said; this can be done but requires understanding of the lateral force transfer mechanism of a shear wall and proper detailing to get the forces into the foundation. Overall it should not be that expensive of a detail but you'll want to have a structural engineer involved to get everything detailed properly.

If this was an unplanned expense then an engineer should be able to detail this one item without being involved on the whole construction and their fee wont break the bank this way.

Ian Riley, PE, SE
Professional Engineer (ME, NH, MA) Structural Engineer (IL)
American Concrete Industries

https://www.facebook.com/AmericanConcrete/

 

[msquared48]

Call Simpson...

Mike McCann, PE, SE (WA)

 

[NorthCivil]

I would be open to doing this, if the strong wall landed on a big glulam or PSL beam below. might need a steel bearing plate below the strong wall. careful non standard detailing would be required.

 

[MJC6125]

Attached is a reference from Simpson for installing a Strong-Wall on LSL or PSL beams.

 

[home builder rob]

Edub24:
The structure in question is a house to be built in Santa Paula, Ca. The house is going to be built into a hillside. So the second floor is going to be sitting on an retaining wall. Anyway, in regards to using a strong wall, on one wall line I have design a shear wall system to sit on a beam. On another wall line I have to design another shear wall system that doesn't have any shear walls directly below the shear walls on the second floor. SO that is my dilema at the moment.

 

[WoodDesignCat]

You should be able to, but the connections from wall to beam and beam to below will be entirely up to you and you need to design holdown connections with an over-strength factor when designing seismic loads. This thread seems like it dives into what you need to do for that.

https://www.eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=341455

 

[Ron]

StrongWall is a tested assembly. Its values apply to the tested conditions. If you step outside those conditions, the test data may not be valid and certainly Simpson won't be responsible for it.