How to Calculate Stresses on Buildings

Professional engineers must calculate the stresses a building will be subjected to as part of the design process. There are many types of stresses a building must withstand. These include dead loads, live loads, lateral loads caused by wind or water and dynamic loads, such as the loads exerted by the impact of a car or the movement of an elevator in a shaft. These calculations are complicated and tedious so engineers and architects use design software to assist them. However, the principles behind calculating these stresses can be illustrated by measuring the uniform load stress exerted on a building by its permanent or dead loads, the actual weight of the building and its fixtures.

Things You'll Need

• List of building materials and fixtures
• Calculator

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Instructions

1. • 1

     List all the materials used in the construction of a building, including the foundation, concrete, walls, windows, tiles, beams, roof and other permanent fixtures of the building.

   • 2

     Determine the total weight of all these materials by cross-referencing each material with its weight from a published list of material weights. Multiply the number of items of each material by its weigh and add them together.

   • 3

     Divide the total weight of the building's dead load by its area. Divide the load per square meter by the length of the beams that support its weight. For example, a 100 square meter building with a total dead load of 10,000 kilograms would exert a dead load of 10 kilograms per square meter.