As you observe, architectural plans should be submitted first followed by the Structural Plans. From the structural plans, students should be able to look for the design criteria and encode in the spreadsheet. Most of the values here are obtained from the General Notes or first sheet of the Structural Plan. They will then refer to NSCP 2010 to verify the values and set constant parameters like the following:
- Beta factor of concrete from assumed Fc'
- minimum reinforcement ratio from assumed fy and fc'
- maximum reinforcement ratio
From structural plans, loading distribution plan and loading designation plan should be generated. This exercise will help student realize on loading effects on members and will determine by inspection which girder or beam will carry the most load.
There will be four major loading criteria for student to analyse:
- Dead Load
- Live Load
- Wind Load
- Earthquake Load
Gravity loads like Dead Load and Live load will be analyzed by Moment Distribution Method while Wind Load and Earthquake load by Factor Method.
Loading combinations are then post processed after analysis to obtain the Governing load combinations to be used in Design of Elements.