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NCSEA News
News form the National Council of Structural Engineers Associations
Celebrating
NCSEA Code Advisory Committee Report The Code Advisory Committee (CAC) is composed of 6 subcommittees: General, Existing Buildings, Seismic, Quality Assurance, Wind, and Evaluation Services, and an executive committee, composed of the chairs of each of the subcommittees, including Ed Huston (General), David Bonowitz (Existing Buildings), Kevin Moore (Seismic), Kirk Harman (Quality Assurance), Don Scott (Wind), Bill Warren (Evaluation Services) and this author. The CAC’s charge is to improve the building codes to assure safe, economical and reliable construction. Building codes today consist of no single document, but rather, a complex suite of documents including the model codes themselves (there are several), the individual state and municipal adoptions of these codes, the ANSI consensus standards the codes adopt by reference, and a series of evaluation services reports that identify the code conformance of proprietary products of different types. The committees’ specific activities include: 1) Monitoring the status of the model building codes, their referenced standards, and evaluation service approvals, to assure that our “codes” are providing safe and economical structures, and do not place undue burden on structural engineers either through unfair apportionment of professional responsibility/liability, or through imposition of unclear, conflicting, or hardto-implement requirements. 2) Through advocacy, suggesting, to the standards committees, proposals intended to address our membership’s concerns. 3) Providing public comment to the standards associated with revisions that are not in our member’s interests. 4) Developing and submitting code change proposals to the ICC, to address issues of concern. 5) Monitoring code change proposals submitted by others, to assure that these do not violate the principles indicated in 1 above. 6) Attending the ICC code hearings, and advocating for (or testifying against) proposals consistent with the goals indicated in item 1 above. 7) Partnering with the ICC-ES and other evaluation services, to improve the technical adequacy of their evaluation of acceptance criteria and product reports. 8) Providing public comment on acceptance criteria proposals, through the public hearing process, as appropriate to accomplish the goals in item 1 above. In recent years, the CAC has also initiated activities aimed at providing continuing education to NCSEA members on the various code requirements and their proper implementation. This takes the form of development and publication of design manuals and webinars.
technical changes to the IRC and IEBC. Presently, we are in the middle of the cycle for Group B changes. Proposal submittals were due in January 2013; and ICC just public hearings in May to review and vote upon proposals submitted. The IRC is a highly prescriptive code with a focus on the use of “conventional” construction requirements. Tables within the code prescribe minimum size and spacing of structural elements based on span, story height, wind speed and seismic zonation; however, these tables are often based on past common practice, rather than actual calculations of demand and capacity, and frequently result in lower-strength structures than the IBC. Structural engineers would like to see the IRC brought into closer alignment with the requirements of the IBC, thereby guarding against permitting prescriptive construction for complex structural situations, where the expertise of a structural engineer is required to assure an appropriate structure. The IEBC is still new to many jurisdictions. The intent of this code is to govern the use of existing buildings, including additions, repairs and alterations, and to deal with unsafe conditions, traditionally the subjects of Chapter 34 of the IBC. The IEBC includes a series of requirements for structural evaluation and upgrade for an existing building, triggered by different project types (additions, alterations, repairs, change of occupancy, or relocation). In addition to evaluation and upgrade triggers, the IEBC also includes a number of alternative design procedures for specific types of buildings, such as unreinforced masonry bearing wall buildings and wood frame residential construction with unanchored cripple walls. Many of these design procedures have been developed over the years by NCSEA and our member organizations.
Code Change Proposals Participation in the ICC code change process is a major effort and is one of NCSEA’s most publicly visible activities. Effective action in this environment requires not only detailed technical knowledge, but also political sensitivity and superior
Building Codes ICC is in the process of developing its 2015 series of model building codes, including the International Building Code (IBC), the International Existing Building Code (IEBC), and the International Residential Code (IRC), among others. It does this in two groups, over a period of three years. Group A changes, which were administered in 2012, included technical changes to structural design criteria included in the IBC. Group B changes (administered this year) include administrative adoption of updated structural standards adopted by the IBC, as well as STRUCTURE magazine
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