wall panel dead load

huangyhg

wall panel dead load
is the vertical dead load of metal wall panel supported by the girts or the foundation/slab/grade beam?  we have 100 feet tall building and someone is telling me that the full weight of the wall panel is supported by the grade beam around the perimeter.  which means the wall panel has to support it's own cumulative weight.  at the same time, i haven't seen girts designed for anything but wind load.
we don't ever put vertical dead load into girts (except self weight - and thus sag rods) so we assume it all goes to the grade beam.
i think the girts transfer vertical dead load into the connections to cols and then that load plus any cumulative load is transfered to the column foundation. i do not assume the grade beam takes all the cumulative load from the panels above.
regards,
rarebug
so, twinnell....either way!
what is a grade beam?
in this case it would be a concrete beam at grade carrying vertical load (how much is left to the reader here) to the concrete footings beyond.  
you could also design it as a strip footing, but maybe the dead load is needed at the footings for overturning...????
mike mccann
mccann engineering
twinnell:
when you say "girts", i visualize horizontal steel members spanning between steel mainframes of a metal building.  
horizontal girts.
cool situation.  if the wall weighs 4 psf (2 psf panel + 2 psf other stuff), then that's 400 plf at the bottom.  it would be interesting to check the wall panel itself for combined bending and column buckling for the length from the foundation to the first girt.  i have no clue how that would work out because some of those are pretty darn skinny and the first girt might be 8-10' (guess) from the foundation.  might need to put the first few girts closer together to cut down the column buckling unbraced length.
thanks mssquare48
last job i completed was girts spanning approx 9m and with 2 rows of sag struts.  at the bottom of the bottom girt 2 short struts were put in propped from the panel and straightening the girt system as they are very weak in the vertical direction even under their own dead load.
my normal practice is to support the cladding vertical load at the top, not the bottom.  the girts are designed for horizontal load only.  the cladding distributes the vertical loads by diaphragm action to the sag rods or other vertical supports which are in tension.  but there are other ways of doing it, and it depends somewhat on the type of cladding.  i would avoid relying on the cladding for much capacity in compression.