IBC Masonry Design Provisions Streamlined

NovemberDecember 2008
Industry News

IBC Masonry Design
Provisions Streamlined

The Masonry Society (TMS) and the Masonry Alliance for Codes and Standards (MACS) recently co-sponsored a series of code changes to simplify the design requirements in the International Building Code (IBC) by removing parts and portions of the Masonry Standards Joint Committee (MSJC) Code and Specification (TMS 402/ACI 530/ASCE 5 and TMS 602/ACI 530.1/ASCE 6) requirements that had been transcribed into the IBC. Historically, these requirements were kept within the IBC – in addition to the MSJC – to provide easily accessible guidance to designers, contractors and building code officials implementing these provisions. These transcribed provisions, however, created administrative and technical hurdles, including:

• Concurrently maintaining the respective requirements in both the IBC and MSJC in a consistent manner so that conflicts do not arise.
• Transcribing portions of the MSJC documents into the IBC allowed their modification outside of the consensus standardization process.
• Because only parts of these requirements were transcribed, but not all the requirements needed to effectively and accurately apply their use in the field, it gave the false impression that there are no other design, detailing, material, or construction requirements with which to comply.

Through the deletion of these transcribed requirements, the control and content of the structural design and construction provisions for masonry is exclusively within the jurisdiction of the MSJC.

Source: National Concrete Masonry Association MD