Steel Specs

9/11, earthquakes, and various and sundry other natural and unnatural disasters have compelled us to realize that our building strength calculations need improved. This year the American Institute for Steel Construction intends to do that with its new Specification for Structural Steel Buildings. I won't go into the mathematical details, but believe me that the new direct analysis method is a quantum leap improvement of the old K-factor calculations. Easier to work with and more representative of reality. Check out www.aisc.org for details.