SCHOOL OF CIVIL ENGINEERING

AND ARCHITECTURE
DEPARTMENT OF CIVIL
ENGINEERING

CEng3203 Theory of Structure

Chapter 1-Loads on Structures

By: Mahlet Mekonnen
(MSc. in Structural Engineering)
 OUTLINE
Dead Loads
Live Loads
Environmental Loads (Wind loads, Earthquake
forces)
Load Combinations

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 INTRODUCTION
What is Load?
A load is a weight or source of pressure due to materials or persons acting on a
structure.
The loads that enter a system are of three different types.
Concentrated loads (example a single vehicular wheel load) are those that are
applied over a relatively small area. SI Unit in KN
Line loads are distributed along a narrow strip of the structure. Such as the
weight of a member itself and the weight of a wall or partition. SI Unit in KN/m
Surface loads are loads that are distributed over an area. The loads on a
warehouse floor and the snow load on a roof are examples of surface loads. SI
Unit in KN/m2
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INTRODUCTION

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 TYPES OF LOAD
• The loads that act on a structure can be grouped into three categories:
Dead loads,
Live loads, and
Environmental loads. –Wind , Earthquake and Snow loads
• Furthermore, loads can be classified based on:
 Direction:- Gravity/vertical and Lateral/horizontal loads
 Variation with time:- Dead load (permanent) and Live Loads (temporary)
 Structural Response:- Static (loads applied gradually) and dynamic (loads
applied over a short period of time and vary in magnitude with time)

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 DEAD LOADS
• Dead loads are those that act on the structure as a result of the weight of the
structure itself and of the components of the system that are permanent fixtures.
As a result, dead loads are characterized as having fixed magnitudes and
positions.

• Examples of dead loads are the weights of the structural members themselves,
such as beams and columns, the weights of roof surfaces, floor slabs, ceilings, or
permanent partitions, and so on.

• Dead loads associated with the structure can be determined if the materials and
sizes of the various components are known. Some of standard material unit
weights are shown in Referring ‘ES EN 1991:2015 Part 1-1 General Actions’
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DEAD LOADS

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 LIVE LOADS
• Live loads also known as imposed loads are those that may vary over time and
often result from the occupancy of the structure.

• Typically, live loads may include; people, movable objects like furniture, vehicles
and the like. Live loads are variable as they depend on usage and capacity.
•
• However, design codes such as our very nation’s ‘ES EN 1991:2015 Part 1-1
General Actions’ provide equivalent loads for various building categories and their
specific usages.

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LIVE LOADS

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LIVE LOADS

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 WIND LOADS
• Wind loads are also among the environmental load cases caused by a moving
(blowing) air mass against an obstructing structure and hence subsequently
converting the kinetic energy of the wind into a potential energy of pressure.

• Wind pressures can be either positive or negative.

• Positive wind pressures: are loads having pushing effects.

• Negative wind pressures (suctions): are those loads having pulling effects.

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 WIND LOADS
• These loadings caused by wind are expected to affect three perspective faces of a
given structure. These are the windward, leeward and sides of a structure

• The windward faces: are those in the upwind direction or from which the wind is
coming. Windward faces are always loaded with positive wind pressures.
• The leeward faces: are those which are away (downward or downwind) from the
upcoming wind. Leeward faces are always loaded with negative wind pressures
(suctions).
• The side faces: are those faces parallel to the direction of the wind. Side walls can
be loaded with positive or negative pressures depending on the geometric plan
shape of the structure.
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 WIND LOADS
Factors affecting wind load
• The intensity of wind load on a given structure depends on the following factors:
Density of the air: Dense air induces greater wind pressure.
Velocity of the wind: Speedy winds are prone to cause more effect on a given
structure.
 Exposure extent of the structure: which in turn is dependent on terrain roughness
and topography of its location, expresses the vulnerability of the structure to wind
actions
Height of the structure: High rising structures are more affected that shorter ones
as wind load increases over the height of a structure.
Planimetric shape of the structure: different plan geometries show enormously
varying response against the expected wind loads acting on them
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 WIND LOADS-ANALYSIS
• Step 1- Basic Values
• Determination of basic wind velocity:
• vb = cdir × cseason × vb,0
• Where: vb basic wind velocity
• cdir directional factor
• cseason seasonal factor
• v b,0 fundamental value of the basic wind velocity, referring Ethiopian wind
map

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 WIND LOADS-ANALYSIS
• Step 2- Basic Velocity pressure

• Step 3- Peak pressure

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 WIND PRESSURE ON SURFACES
A positive wind load stands for pressure whereas a negative wind load indicates
suction on the surface. This definition applies for the external wind action as well as
for the internal wind action.
• External pressure coefficients
The wind pressure acting on the external surfaces, we should be obtained from the
following expression:

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 WIND PRESSURE ON SURFACES
• Internal pressure coefficient
The wind pressure acting on the internal surfaces of a structure, wi should be
obtained from the following expression

Net wind pressure:

is the difference of the external and internal pressures on each surface taking due
account of their signs.
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 EARTHQUAKE LOAD
• An earth quake is a sudden undulation of a portion of the earth’s surface.

• Although the ground surface moves both in horizontal and vertical directions
during an earthquake, the magnitude of the vertical ground motion is usually small
and does not have a significant effect on most structures.

• It is the horizontal component of ground motion that causes structural damage and
must be considered in design of structures located in earthquake prone areas.

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 EARTHQUAKE LOAD
• Ground Conditions
• The influence of local ground condition on seismic action shall generally be accounted for by
considering ground type

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 EARTHQUAKE LOAD
• Seismic Zones
• The purpose of this standard, the country has been subdivided into seismic zones,
depends on the local hazard. By definition, the hazard within each zone can be
assumed to be constant.
• For applications of this standard, the hazard is described in terms of a single
parameter, i.e. the value ag of the effective peak ground acceleration on rock or
firm soil, henceforth called “peak ground acceleration".
• The peak ground acceleration for each seismic zone corresponds to a reference
return period of 50years. To this reference return period, an importance factor I
equal to 1.0 is assigned.

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 EARTHQUAKE LOAD
• The design ground acceleration on type A ground ag is equal to
• ag= I * agR
• Seismic zones with a design ground acceleration of ag not greater than 0.08g
(zones 1 and 2) are low seismicity zones, for which reduced or simplified seismic
design procedures for certain types or categories of structures may be used.
• In seismic zones with a design ground acceleration of ag not greater than 0.05g
very low seismicity, the provision of this standard need not be observed.

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 LOAD COMBINATION
• For each critical load case design values of the effects of actions are determined
by combining the effects of actions that are considered to act simultaneously

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LOAD COMBINATION

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LOAD COMBINATION

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LOAD COMBINATION

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 LOAD COMBINATION
• Fundamental Combinations
Combinations of actions for persistent or transient design situations are called fundamental
combinations and the general format of effects of actions at ULS (ultimate limit state) is written as

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LOAD COMBINATION

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 LOAD COMBINATION
• Combinations of Actions for Seismic Design Situation
• To perform the verification of structure design at ULS and for a building type B,
the following combination of permanent and variable actions in seismic design
situation is considered:

Final critical Load Combinations

To perform the verification of structure design at ultimate limit state method (ULS),
we adopt the following two critical load combinations in persistent, transient and
seismic design situations:

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