C-B1B1 General provisions

This Specification is meant to be primarily applicable to the common types of building frames with gravity loads carried by beams and girders and lateral loads carried by moment frames, braced frames, or shear walls. However, there are many unusual buildings or building-like structures for which this Specification is also applicable. Rather than attempt to establish the purview of the Specification with an exhaustive classification of construction types, Section B1 requires that the design of members and their connections be consistent with the intended use of the structure and the assumptions made in the analysis of the structure.

Section B1 widens the purview of this Specification to a class of construction types broader than those addressed in editions of the Specification prior to 2016. Section B1 recognizes that a structural system is a combination of members connected in such a way that the structure can respond in different ways to meet different design objectives under different loads. Even within the purview of ordinary buildings, there can be enormous variety in the design details.

Previous to the 2005 edition, the Specification contained a section titled “Types of Construction”; for example, Section A2 in the 1999 Load and Resistance Factor Design Specification for Structural Steel Buildings (AISC, 2000b). In this Specification, there is no such section and the requirements related to “types of construction” have been divided between Section B1, Section B3.4, and Section J1.