Design Method for Buildings with Multiple Live Load Coefficients for Combination Values

Library buildings and archives buildings include not only large area of stack rooms,but also sizable area for reading rooms,meeting rooms or offices;on the contrary,part of the floor area of school buildings or complex office buildings may also be used as stack rooms.The uniform live load for stack rooms is significantly larger than the typical floor types.Moreover,both Load Code and Seismic Code respectively define Live load coefficient for combination values,which are not identical in meanings and values in either codes.The first part of this article explains and differentiates the Live load coefficient for combination values defined in both codes.Applying those values correctly in structural design work using popular design software is also discussed.