1. Code & Standards Watch
Updates & New Releases:
AISC/RCSC Design Guide 41 Released: Design guidance for stainless steel bolts, used to connect stainless or carbon steel components.
Working Sessions, Public Comment, & Balloting:
NFPA 5000-2024 & Proposed 2027 Editions: Proposed Tentative Interim Amendment (TIA) No 1870 Seeking Public Comments through Apr 24, 2026
AISC Code of Standard Practice for Steel Buildings and Bridges (AISC 303): Draft available for public review & comment March 6th through April 20th
TMS 405 “Mini Summit”: Existing Masonry Standards Committee formal working session as part of the 2026 TMS Spring Meeting, April 21-23 in Denver
2026 ICC Leadership Week + Hearings: 2027 I-Code development
Public Comment Hearings – Groups A & B
April 18 – 24
Connecticut Convention Center | Hartford, CT
Latest Errata:
Illustration update in Table 6-2a to properly show the concrete stress block stopping at PNA
Typo correction in Eccentrically Loaded Weld Groups Coefficients, Table 8-4.
Correction to the effective width equation for elements attaching to the face of rectangular HSS.
2. Research Snapshot
Out-of-plane behavior of masonry walls strengthened with full-length injected tie-rods
Unreinforced masonry structures have shown exceptionally poor performance in earthquakes, and unfortunately, many of our most historically valuable buildings are built this way. Engineers have been working on retrofit reinforcement techniques to solve this issue, but most are external and high-visual-impact strategies, unpalatable for “heritage” sites. Adhering reinforcement to the face, or running tie rods through walls with “star plates” both prove effective, but visually undesirable.
This study looks at numerical and analytical modeling methods to kick off work in moving full-length injected tie rods from the lab to the field. This technology, wherein full-length holes are bored down the length of the wall and steel tie rods are continuously adhered down the core to the wall, acts much more like a fully-bonded rebar in a modern wall. Scaled experiments demonstrated high effectiveness in improving out-of-plane strength and ductility of walls, and suggest sensitivity to reinforcement size, spacing, and layout. Finite element modeling and a kinematic failure mechanism investigation both proved to match relatively well, but more work is needed in quantifying best practices.
Key Takeaways: Full-length injected tie rods work like a post-installed, full-length longitudinal rebar, and can be a non-visually-obtrusive means of strengthening unreinforced masonry walls. The low visual impact can help to get approval for retrofits in heritage structures. More study is needed to help determine best practices in reinforcement size, spacing, and layout selections.
3. Tools & Workflow
Added Code Support:
CSA A23.3:2024 concrete frame design
New Features:
Nonlinear concrete material behavior support added for solid elements, currently only Faria model available
4. Case Study of the Week
Seismic Assessment and Strengthening of a Load-Bearing Masonry Structure Considering SSI Effects
Researchers modeled two different versions of potential seismic retrofit solutions to be applied to an existing, historic structure in Myrina, Greece. The current-state of the structure includes a hybrid timber/masonry original building and numerous modifications over several massive prior renovations. Modeling was conducted via SAP2000, so the tools used should be familiar to many readers.
Key takeaways: Soil-Structure Interactions dominated behavior, more than doubling interstory drift ratios from those calculated without including these effects. This is common for analyses of masonry structures: soil classification is critical, and modeling with rigid base material is unconservative for both stress and deflections.
5. Upcoming Free Live PDH
1.0 PDH, Friday, April 10 @ 11 am Central, Presented by SGH
Speaker: Paul Kassabian
1.0 PDH, Wednesday, April 15 @ 12 pm Central, Presented by WoodWorks
Speakers: Michael Scancarello + Christopher Angelakis
Bonus Session - Smartlam North America manufacturer Q&A after completion of the accredited portion of the session
6. Quick Hits
FEMA remains unfunded in the longest partial government shutdown in US history
👋 From the Editor
I’m Eric, the engineer behind StructEd Brief. I dig through stacks of journal articles and software patch notes to find useful information for practicing engineers and keep an eye on the scattered code updates & errata for you. I’m just getting started, so if you find this useful, the best way to support the newsletter is to share it with a colleague or post it on LinkedIn. It helps more than you’d think!
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