Cairngorm Road: timber frame racking design in two directions
A timber frame project where lateral stability was designed properly: wind loading, roof loads and racking resistance all assessed in both orthogonal directions.
What the project needed.
Timber frame buildings resist lateral load through racking panels, and that resistance has to be demonstrated in both directions independently. The assessment was carried out for the full house and for the individual building sections.
Work carried out
- Wind loading assessment
- Roof load assessment at 0 and 90 degrees
- Racking resistance at 0 and 90 degrees
- Timber frame racking panel design, both directions
- Proposed ground floor structural plan
What cairngorm road actually involves.
Racking is what stops a timber frame building deforming sideways under wind load. It is provided by the sheathed panels, and the available resistance depends on panel length, sheathing, fixing pattern and the openings cut into it. A wall with a large opening provides far less racking resistance than its length suggests.
The assessment was run separately at 0 and 90 degrees because wind does not care about a building's convenient axis, and a frame can be adequate in one direction while short in the other. Roof loads were assessed in both directions on the same basis.
Resistance was calculated both for the full house and for the right side of the building separately, because racking capacity has to be available where the load arrives, not merely somewhere in the building overall.
Cairngorm Road
79 calculation and drawing documents plus 5 CAD files.
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