Jay W. Larson, P.E., F.ASCE, is Managing Director of the AISI Construction Technical Program, which includes AISI’s longstanding and effective building code and standards development functions. He served as secretary of the AISI task group that drafted Chapter D of AISI S240. He provides service and leadership to numerous industry and professional organizations. He may be contacted at jlarson@steel.org.
From 2001 to 2012, the AISI Committee on Framing Standards developed nine different framing standards to cover specific aspects of cold-formed steel framing. Six of these standards addressed the design of structural elements, such as general provisions, wall studs, floor joists, trusses, headers, and shear walls. …
“The whole is greater than the sum of its parts” is an often-used phrase. Commonly attributed to Aristotle, these words ring especially true when examining the recent evolution of the AISI standards. Ten years ago, the AISI standards were compartmentalized into discrete packages on such topics as: general provisions, header design, truss design, structural wall stud design, floor and roof system design, and lateral force resisting system design. …
Most typical nonstructural partitions are specified and constructed in accordance with the industry or manufacturers’ design tables and would not require additional, formal engineering input on a project-by-project basis. The manufacturers’ design tables are based on engineering principles and tests. However, there are projects where the requirements are outside the limits of the manufacturers’ design tables. …