CIVL3170 Design Actions Assignment Brief 2025 | UON

CIVL3170 Administration guidance

The workload required for this assignment is substantial and perhaps underappreciated at first glance.  

• Therefore,  you  should  start  each  stage  of  this  assessment  as  soon  as  you  have  the required information (from lectures, tutorials, readings, etc.). 
• Your assessment must be bound with a University of Newcastle group-work cover sheet.
• Submitted work must be completed on 5 mm grid engineering calculation paper, including all calculations and drawings. An example of suitable engineering paper is shown on the last page of this brief.
• You  are  required  to  complete  this  assessment  in  groups  of  2.  The  main  function  of  this assessment is to provide you with an opportunity to learn some of the required design skills that will help with the Final Exam. Therefore, while it is good practice to divide the tasks in this assessment between your group, you should ensure that you  fully understand  every section, including the ones calculated by your partner.
• Hence, it’s recommended that you adopt a two-stage process for every section of your calculations;  that  is,  if  one  person  does  a  section  of  the  calculations,  then  the  other person  thoroughly  checks  these  calculations.  Moreover,  as  both  group  members  are equally  accountable  for  all  the  submitted  work,  this  process  will  help  improve  your mark. 

Overview of CIVL3170 

In this assignment, you will determine the ultimate strength design loads for a proposed warehouse in Geraldton, WA. The warehouse is proposed to be of steel portal frame design with dimensions as per Section 2, to suit the client’s needs. The design loads you determine are to be in accordance with AS1170 and are required for the first internal portal frame (Figure 1) and the middle mullion located on the Western end wall (Figure 1).  

It is strongly recommended that you complete the relevant design calculations with constant reference to this document, including the assumptions and guidance sections. 2. Building layout The proposed warehouse is of steel portal frame design. The building plan and elevation for the warehouse are shown in Figure 1 and Figure 2 respectively. The Eastern wall has two main openings for roller doors. The Southern wall has a service door with dimensions 3 m x 2.5 m. Variables for the warehouse are given in Table 1. Figure 3 shows the wind direction notation for theta used in this assignment.

Figure 2. Eastern elevation of warehouse (drawing not to scale)

Figure 3. Wind direction notation for theta

CIVL3170 Assessment Requirements (as per the marking rubric):

Preliminary points:

• You are to register your group of two via Canvas, then work in this group to determine the ultimate-strength design actions for the warehouse described in Section 2.
• Your  calculations  are  to  be  in  accordance  with  AS1170.0-2011,  AS1170.1-2009  and AS1170.2-2021. If superseded versions of the standards are used, you will encounter a 50% penalty on your mark. The most up-to-date standards can be obtained via The University of Newcastle’s library webpage through the ‘database’ portal and then by clicking on ‘Australian Standards’. If you haven't already, you will need to make an account with SAI Global.

Primary assessment requirements:

 (a) Task:

Calculate design wind speed and determine wind pressure coefficients for all unique cases including:

• The wind speed for each orthogonal direction as shown in Figure 3.
• The internal and external pressure coefficients of both the first internal portal frame and the mullion 
• Label each wind load case for the frame as WL1, WL2, WL3, etc., and, o Label each wind load case for the mullion as ML1, ML2, ML3, etc.  

Guide: Use the following notes to assist in the providing the required results:  First calculate the design wind speed for each orthogonal / wind direction.

• You will need to check three different opening configurations for the roller doors i.e. both doors open, both doors closed, one door open/one door closed.
• You must  calculate the internal and  external  pressure coefficients individually  for  each orthogonal / wind direction (=0o, =90o, =180o, =270o).
• For  each  unique  wind  load  case  you  must  show  the  external pressure coefficients  on  a sketch of the building plan.
• As there will many wind load cases that you will define in section 3(a), you should annotate any duplicate WL case with a reference back to where it was first drawn, e.g. "same as WL5."
• An example of resulting wind load case diagrams for the portal frame and mullion is shown in Figure 6

Assumptions: you must assume the following:

• The service door is always open
• The building is exposed to conditions consistent with Terrain category 2.5 except on the North  side  of  the  structure.  On  the  North  side  of  the  structure  only,  there  is  multiple buildings and trees visible, typically of a height less than the building height. 
• There are no other adjacent buildings near the warehouse with a height greater or equal to the warehouse height. Further, there are no hills, ridges or escarpments near the structure.
• The cladding on all walls is not permeable.
• The warehouse has a design life of 50 years. 
• Assume a shielding parameter (s) = 1.5 for wind directions N, NE and NW.

(b) Task:  

Write  down  the  pressure  coefficient  combinations  –  from  Section  3(a)  –  which  you consider are "critical”: 

• Include each wind load case in equation form only with relevant ULS load combinations (e.g., 1.2G+1.5Q, 1.2G+WL2, etc.,)
• Describe the reason for selecting each critical load combination briefly. 
• (Hint: will probably be less than 10 critical load cases)

 Guide: Use the following notes to assist in the providing the required results:

• List  the  critical  load  combinations  and  provide  an  explanation  of  why  they  would  be considered critical for design.
• Consider multiple variations (including multiple wind loads cases) and justify.  Assumptions: Consider the following critical load combinations for the listed portal frame ONLY:
• uplift vertical loads (rafter)
• downward vertical loads (rafter) 
• max. horizontal loads (sway, columns) 
• combinations of vertical and horizontal loads.

(c) Task:

Present loading diagrams for both the first internal portal frame and for the mullion including the following four load cases ONLY:

• 1.2G + 1.5Q
• =0o (worst case Wu for right side of portal frame)
• =90o (worst case Wu for rafter)
• = 180o (worst case Wu for left side of portal frame)