Principles and main points of recent revision of ‘Load code for the design of building structures’

The national standard 'Load code for the design of building structures' has been revised against the general background of global climate change,global anti-terrorist and globalization of economy.The main principles and points of the revision of the code can be outlined as: Based on the statistics of recently collected climate data,the reference wind load and snow load for cities all around China shall be updated.The reference air temperature will be provided to cope with the threat to structural safety which may be caused by disasters of extreme weather.Thermal actions and accidental loads shall be added so that the scope of the code will be expanded from direct action only to direct and indirect actions to fulfill the need of design against the actions of thermal,explosion and impact for specific building structures.Overall amendment for wind load covering wind profiles,pressure coefficients and expressions of along wind dynamic response shall be carried out and enhanced so that the expressions and parameters used for determination of wind load will be more reasonable,transparent and international.Provisions for calculation of equivalent wind load induced by cross-wind and torsion dynamic response shall be prescribed to meet the need of design for super high-rise building projects.