NSCP General Requirements and Structural Design Definitions

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering general requirements, building classifications, load criteria, foundations, concrete, structural steel, wood, and masonry design provisions from the NSCP code.

Addition

An extension or increase in floor area or height of a building or structure.

Allowable Stress Design

A method of proportioning structural elements such that computed stresses produced in the elements by the allowable stress load combinations do not exceed specified allowable stress (also called working stress design).

Building Official

The officer or other designated authority charged with the administration and enforcement of this code, or the building official's duly authorized representative.

Load and Resistance Factor Design (LRFD) Method

A method of proportioning structural elements using load and resistance factors such that no applicable limit state is reached when the structure is subjected to all appropriate load combinations, used in the design of steel and wood structures.

Strength Design

A method of proportioning structural elements such that computed forces produced in the elements by factored load combinations do not exceed the factored element strength, used in the design of concrete and masonry structures.

Structural Engineer

A registered Civil Engineer with special qualification in the practice of Structural Engineering as recognized by the Board of Civil Engineering of the Professional Regulation Commission.

Occupancy Category I: Essential Facilities

Buildings and other structures intended to remain operational in the event of extreme environmental loading from wind or earthquakes, including surgery and emergency treatment areas, fire and police stations, garages and shelters for emergency vehicles/aircraft, emergency preparedness centers, and aviation control towers.

Occupancy Category II: Hazardous Facilities

Occupancies and structures housing or supporting toxic or explosive chemicals or substances, as well as non-building structures housing, supporting, or containing quantities of toxic or explosive substances.

Occupancy Category III: Special Occupancy Structures

Buildings with an assembly room having an occupant capacity of $1{,}000$ or more, educational buildings with a capacity of $300$ or more students, college/adult education buildings with a capacity of $500$ or more students, institutional buildings with $50$ or more incapacitated patients, mental hospitals, jails, and structures with an occupancy of $5{,}000$ or more persons.

Occupancy Category IV: Standard Occupancy Structures

All structures housing occupancies or having functions not listed in Category I, II, or III, and Category V.

Occupancy Category V: Miscellaneous Structures

Private garages, carports, sheds, agricultural buildings, and fences over $1.8\,\text{meters}$ high.

Access Floor System

An assembly consisting of panels mounted on pedestals to provide an under-floor space for the installations of mechanical, electrical, communications, or similar systems, or to serve as an air-supply or return-air plenum.

Agricultural Building

A structure designed to house farm implements, hay, grain, poultry, livestock, or other horticultural products, which is not a place of human habitation, a public space, or a place where agricultural products are processed, treated, or packaged.

Assembly Building

A building or portion of a building for the gathering together of $50$ or more persons for purposes such as deliberation, education, instruction, worship, entertainment, amusement, drinking, dining, or awaiting transportation.

Dead Loads

Loads that consist of the weight of all materials and fixed equipment incorporated into the building or other structure.

Live Loads

Loads produced by the use and occupancy of the building or other structure, not including dead load, construction load, or environmental loads such as wind, snow, rain, or earthquake loads.

Bearing Wall

Any metal or wood stud wall that supports more than $0.5\,\text{kN}$ per linear meter of superimposed load, or any masonry or concrete wall that supports more than $1.0\,\text{kN}$ per linear meter of superimposed load, or supports its own weight for more than one story.

Exterior Wall

Any wall, element of a wall, or member defining the exterior boundaries or courts of a building that has a slope of $60^\circ$ or greater with the horizontal plane.

Retaining Wall

A wall designed to resist the lateral displacement of soil or other materials.

Cut Surface Slope Limit

A slope of cut surfaces that shall be no steeper than safe for intended use and no steeper than $1$ unit vertical in $2$ units horizontal ($50\%$ slope), unless an approved engineering geology or geotechnical report justifies a steeper slope.

Excavation Notification Notice

A written notification that must be served to owners of adjoining buildings not less than $10\,\text{days}$ before an excavation commences.

Ground Benching for Fill

Ground surface preparation required where natural slopes are steeper than $1$ unit vertical in $5$ units horizontal ($20\%$ slope) and the height exceeds $1.5\,\text{meters}$, requiring a bench under the toe of fill that is at least $3\,\text{meters}$ wide.

Admixture

Material other than water, aggregate, or hydraulic cement used as an ingredient of concrete and added to concrete before or during its mixing to modify its properties.

Structural Lightweight Concrete

Concrete containing lightweight aggregate with an air-dry unit weight as determined by ASTM C 567 not exceeding $1840\,\text{kg/m}^3$.

Contraction Joint

A formed, sawed, or tooled groove in a concrete structure to create a weakened plane and regulate the location of cracking resulting from the dimensional change of different parts of the structure.

Isolation Joint

A separation between adjoining parts of a concrete structure, usually a vertical plane, designed to allow relative movement in three directions and avoid crack formation elsewhere in the concrete.

Effective Depth of Section ($d$)

The distance measured from extreme compression fiber to the centroid of tension reinforcement.

Compression-Controlled Section

A cross section in which the net tensile strain in the extreme tension steel at nominal strength is less than or equal to the compression-controlled strain limit.

Tension-Controlled Section

A cross section in which the net tensile strain in the extreme tension steel at nominal strength is greater than or equal to $0.005$.

Curvature Friction

Friction resulting from bends and curves in the specified prestressing tendon profile.

Wobble Friction

In prestressed concrete, the friction caused by unintended deviation of the prestressing sheath or duct from its specified profile.

Pedestal

An upright compression member with a ratio of unsupported height to average least lateral dimension not exceeding $3$.

Concrete Column

A member with a ratio of height-to-least-lateral dimension of $3$ or greater used primarily to support axial compressive load.

Beam-Column

A structural member whose primary function is to carry loads both transverse and parallel to its longitudinal axis.

Chevron Bracing

A form of bracing where a pair of braces located either above or below a beam terminates at a single point within the clear beam span.

Compact Section

A section capable of developing a fully plastic stress distribution and possessing a rotation capacity of approximately $3$ before the onset of local buckling.

Eccentric Braced Frame (EBF)

A diagonal braced frame in which at least one end of each bracing member connects to a beam a short distance from a beam-to-column connection or from another beam-to-brace connection.

Euler Load

The critical load of a perfectly straight centrally loaded pin-ended column.

High-Cycle Fatigue

Structural failure resulting from more than $20{,}000$ applications of cyclic stress.

Hybrid Beam

A fabricated steel beam composed of flanges with a greater yield strength than that of the web.

K-Bracing

A system of struts used in a braced frame where a pair of braces located on one side of a column terminates at a single point within the clear column height.

Lamellar Tearing

Separation in highly restrained base metal caused by through-thickness strains induced by shrinkage of adjacent weld metal.

Link Beam

The part of a beam in an eccentrically braced frame designed to yield in shear and/or bending so that buckling of the bracing members is prevented.

P-Delta Effect

The secondary effect of column axial loads and lateral deflection on the moments in structural members.

Plastic Hinge

A yielded zone that forms in a structural member when the plastic moment is attained, allowing the member to rotate as if hinged while strained by the plastic moment $M_p$.

Shape Factor

The ratio of the plastic moment to the yield moment ($M_p / M_y$), or the ratio of the plastic modulus to the section modulus for a cross section.

Strain Hardening

A phenomenon wherein ductile steel, after undergoing considerable deformation at or just above the yield point, exhibits the capacity to resist substantially higher loading than that which caused initial yielding.

Tension Field Action

The behavior of a plate girder panel under shear force in which diagonal tensile stresses develop in the web and compressive forces develop in the transverse stiffeners in a manner analogous to a Pratt truss.

Turn-of-Nut Method

A procedure whereby the specified pre-tension in high-strength bolts is controlled by rotation of the wrench a predetermined amount after the nut has been tightened to a snug fit.

Weathering Steel

A type of high-strength, low-alloy steel that develops tight adherent rust at a decreasing rate over time and can be used in normal outdoor non-marine exposures without protective paint covering.

Blocked Diaphragm

A wood diaphragm in which all sheathing edges not occurring on framing members are supported on and connected to blocking.

Fiberboard

A fibrous-felted, homogeneous panel made from lignocellulosic fibers having a density of less than $497\,\text{kg/m}^3$ but more than $160\,\text{kg/m}^3$.

Hardboard

A fibrous-felted, homogeneous panel made from lignocellulosic fibers consolidated under heat and pressure in a hot press to a density not less than $497\,\text{kg/m}^3$.

Normal Loading (Wood)

A design load that stresses a member or fastening to the full allowable stress, applicable for approximately $10\,\text{years}$ either continuously or cumulatively.

Wood of Natural Resistance to Decay or Termites

The heartwood of specific timber species; recognized decay-resistant species include Narra, Kamagong, Dao, and Tangile, while recognized termite-resistant species include Narra and Kamagong.

Bedded Area

The area of the surface of masonry that is in contact with mortar in the plane of the joint.

Collar Joint

The mortared or grouted space between wythes of masonry.

Grout Lift

An increment of grout height within the total grout pour.

Grout Pour

The total height of masonry wall to be grouted prior to the erection of additional masonry, consisting of one or more grout lifts.

Hollow-Masonry Unit

A masonry unit whose net cross-sectional area (solid area) in any plane parallel to the surface containing cores, cells, or deep frogs is less than $75\%$ of its gross cross-sectional area measured in the same plane.

Solid-Masonry Unit

A masonry unit whose net cross-sectional area in any plane parallel to the surface containing the cores or cells is at least $75\%$ of the gross cross-sectional area measured in the same plane.

Cavity Wall

A wall containing a continuous air space with a minimum width of $51\,\text{mm}$ and a maximum width of $114\,\text{mm}$ between wythes tied with metal ties.

Wythe

The portion of a wall that is one masonry unit in thickness, excluding the collar joint.