Load generation is the process of taking a load causing unit such as wind pressure, ground movement or a truck on a bridge, and converting it to a form such as member load or a joint load which can be then be used in the analysis.

For seismic loads, a static analysis method or a dynamic analysis method can be adopted. The static analysis method, which is the one referred to here, is based on codes such as UBC, IBC, AIJ, IS1893 etc. For dynamic analysis, see the sections in this chapter on response spectrum and time history analysis.