R301.5

Section R301.5 is titled 'Live load' and covers the requirements for the determination of minimum design weight of everything in a building except for the construction materials, i.e., dead loads. Determining the minimum uniformly distributed live load from table R301.5 is established. The purpose of this section is to prevent structural failure. Live load is a term defined in Chapter 2 and is used as part of a structural calculation to assure that gravity will not cause a building to sink into the ground, and is sometimes referred to as 'temporary load', 'variable load', or 'human usage load'. Table R301.5 is presuming that live loads will generally be evenly distributed within a building, except as modified by the footnotes. Where concentrated live loads will be present in a building, a design in accordance with accepted engineering practices would be required.

The model shows examples of materials and human usage that are required to be considered in structural calculations as live load.