lateral loads for mezzanine

huangyhg

lateral loads for mezzanine?
other than seismic, what other lateral loads would you consider for a mezzanine? the mezzanine will be used as a gym with stationery bicycles and running pads.
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i would not consider any other lateral loads, but i would check the floor system for vibration, if you are using concrete topping on steel deck on steel joists or beams.
daveatkins
you might want to design it for some nominal lateral loading.  interior partition walls are typically designed for 5 psf.  that might be a good place to start.
i agree with taro about using 5 psf lateral.  a small percent of the column load, say 1% or 2%, might also give you some kind of number to deign with.
in the uk, code requirements state you must allow a horizontal load of 0.5% minimum of the applied dead + imposed load acting simultaneously with gravity loads.
the purpose is to ensure a robust structure and allow for practical difficulties such as lack of fit and out of plumb.
the difficulty with assuming unit loads applied horizontally is that the floor system has a relatively low surface area which will attract little load.
i would only consider seismic. i would expect that to be larger than any other lateral load you can come up with. i also would check for vibration. mezzanines can present a vibration problem.
for multi-storey buildings the australian standard as4100 steel structures specifies a notional horizontal force of 0.002 times the total design vertical loads at a floor level, applied at that floor level.  it is considered to act in conjunction with the dead and live loads for the strength and serviceability limit states.
the intent is to ensure a minimum resistance to lateral drift in both braced and unbraced frames.
whilst your mezzanine floor is hardy a multi-storey building, the notional horizontal force is a sound principle for ensuring the robustness of the structure.
as/nzs 1170.0, structural design actions, has the following requirement for robustness;
"6.2.2 minimum resistance
the structure shall have a minimum lateral resistance equivalent to 2.5 percent of (g + ?cq) for each level, applied simultaneously at each level for a given direction.
the direction of application of the lateral load shall be that which will produce the most critical action effect in the element under consideration, except that the application of this load in more than one direction simultaneously need not be considered in the design of any
element."
g = dead load, q = live load, ?c = combination factor (=0.4 normally, 0.6 for storage etc.)