Structural Central

Tools for Structural Engineers

Snow - Low Roof Snow - Upper Roof Roof Snow Load

Snow Load Tool
Determine Design Load Cases Due to Snow

What is the Snow Load Tool?

Structural Central's Snow Load Tool is structural engineering software that allows you to quickly generate the calculations required to determine the snow loads on the roof of a structure.

The calculations take the ground snow load, which is based on the site location, and adjust it to account for the surrounding terrain, exposure, internal temperature, occupancy, slope, and roof configuration in order to determine the design snow drift load on the structure.

The types of snow loads calculated include:

  • Flat Roof Snow Load
  • Sloped Roof Snow Load
  • Minimum Roof Snow Load
  • Rain-on-Snow Load
  • Snow Drift Load
▸ Inputs
▸ Drawings
▸ Results Summary
▸ Calculations
Interface Preview
Interface Preview

How does the software work?

INPUT OUTPUT

Ground Snow Load

Uniform Snow Load

Site Specific Conditions

Roof Profile

Snow Drift Load

What can the Snow Load Tool do?

Snow Load Tool Features

Drift Types

Determine the magnitude and width of the snow drift loads for the following cases: roof elevation step, parapet, adjacent structure, and roof projection. These are all of the roof configurations discussed in ASCE 7 that generate wind shadows which results in snow piling up in a region of the roof.

Snow Drift - Roof Elevation Step
Roof Elevation Step
Snow Drift - Parapet
Parapet
Snow Drift - Adjacent Structure
Adjacent Structure
Snow Drift - Roof Projection
Roof Projection

Design Code

Calculate design snow load cases per the Minimum Design Loads and Associated Criteria for Buildings and Other Structures (ASCE/SEI 7) which is the Referenced Standard for design loads of the International Building Code (IBC).

Design Criteria

Select values for the Surface Roughness Category, Exposure of Roof, Thermal Factor, Risk Category, Roof Slope, and Roof Surface Type from the possible dropdown menu options.

Variable Descriptions

Move the mouse over any of the design criteria categories or calculation variables to see a description of what it is.

Table Values

Values for the factors used in the equations will be determined automatically based on the selections you make for the design criteria. This means no flipping through pages to look up the values that are scattered across multiple tables.

What do the calculations look like?

Snow Load Calculation

How much does it cost?

It is free to sign up for Structural Central, which will allow you to access all of the tools. In the future, some features will be limited to users with paid licenses such as saving and printing.

How do I get started?

Click the sign up button below, confirm your email address, and then start generating structural engineering calculations!

Sign Up

Already signed up? Begin a snow load calculation.