Minor Axis Bracing
Two Minor axis flange brace point lists are created, one for the top flange and another for the bottom flange.
Important: These brace points are determined in the following way:
- Beams are assumed to be braced at supports on both the top and the bottom flange.
- Cantilever ends are assumed to be braced on both the top and the bottom flange.
- Beams framing into the member brace both the top and the bottom flange, regardless of the relative depth.
- Steel joists framing into the member brace the top flange only. Those points are added to the top flange brace point list only.
- Beams are assumed to be braced on both the top and the bottom flange wherever a brace frames in (such as for a chevron brace system) or a column from above sits on the beam (as for a transfer girder situation). This assumes that the Engineer is going to specify some kind of bracing at these locations, as is commonly done, as such columns do not intrinsically provide weak axis bracing by themselves.
- User-assigned brace points, specified in the RAM Modeler by the user with the Layout - Beams - Brace Points command, brace the specified flange.
In addition to these brace points the user may specify that the top and / or bottom flanges are continuously braced using the Criteria - Flange Bracing command (or using the Assign command on an individual member).