Masonry Magazine March 1970 Page. 8
Computers & Brick Team Up
Results are given for all floor-to-wall or roof-to-wall junctures for every structural wall in the building. To make checking specific situations easier, the analysis also includes a tabulation of loads on each structural wall and wind moment and shear for each floor.
By examination of the results an engineer can evaluate the building under analysis. If the evaluation proves unsatisfactory, or if he wants to consider another approach, he can do that too. He can tell, within a very short period of time, if his initial assumptions on the structural approach were correct.
By use of this new structural analysis program, an architect or structural engineer can consider load bearing masonry among his initial alternatives, along with other basic structural systems (steel frame, reinforced concrete frame, etc.) Computerized structural analysis has been possible for the last few years in these structural systems.
Load bearing brick masonry, more widely used in Europe, has been coming into more frequent use in the United States as detailed engineering criteria have become available.
"Recommended Building Code Requirements for Engineered Brick Masonry," published by the Structural Clay Products Institute, May, 1966, was used as the engineering reference in writing the program.
Development of this Computer Program by Acme Brick Company "represents a considerable advance for the use of masonry construction in the Southwest," said Mr. Harold Adams, P. E., Marketing Services Manager, Acme Brick Company.
In recent weeks, Acme has prepared preliminary structural analyses on two 13-story retirement centers, two 9-story structures, plus half a dozen others five stories in height or over. The computer structural analysis program exists, it works and it is being used.
At the end of step three, the lengthy and unbelievably detailed preliminary structural analysis spews forth. The printout will be complete in a matter of minutes.
IN STEP TWO, a keypunch operator transfers the information from the worksheets onto punch cards that are fed into the IBM 360 computer.
Step four is the job of the architect or engineer that submitted the plans-analyzing the result. But an Acme engineer examines each analysis before returning the analysis to the originator.
Acme developed three worksheets to effectively translate design data into digital data that the computer can process. The three forms are: (1) Building Form (2) Wall Form and (3) Wall Variables At Joints.