Design of Braced Frames in Open Buildings for Wind Loading

Open-frame buildings are often used to provide a measure of weather protection over equipment or other sheltered storage on industrial sites. These shelters have a roof covering and minimal wall cladding, if any. ASCE 7 provides no guidance on the wind loads acting perpendicular to the frames that would control the design of the longitudinal braces. This paper summarizes wind tunnel tests that were performed on open-frame, low-rise buildings with a roof covering to determine the base shear and bracing loads parallel to the ridge. Two examples are provided to illustrate how the results of this study may be used to obtain the forces in longitudinal bracing.