Canadian Wood Design Updates

The latest releases of RISAFloor and RISA-3D include the following updates to wood design per the Canadian codes:

Wood Wall Design

RISA-3D v16 and RISAFloor v12 now offer design of wood walls per the Canadian wood design codes (CSA O86-09 and CSA O86-14). The design methodology is very much like the Segmented method used by the NDS design codes.

• Design requires chords on each side of each full height panel.

• Design assumes that the areas above and below openings have zero stiffness. Only full height piers are considered to resist loading.

Additionally, the design of individual panel elements is as follows:

• The sheathing panel is assumed to resist the in plane shear

• The chords are assumed to resist the overturning moment

• The studs are assumed to resist the axial load

• The hold downs are designed for the governing tension chord force at the base elevation of the wall

• Deflections, including the effects if hold-down elongation, are calculated per the code based equation

For more information on wood wall design, please see the “Wood Wall” topic in the program help file.

Structural Composite Lumber Design

RISA-3D v16 and RISAFloor v12 will also now offer design of structural composite wood members per Chapter 15 of the current Canadian wood design code (CSA O86-14).