r/engineering • u/metalski • 10d ago

Exhaust stack wind/seismic/frequency calculations? [CIVIL]

I was looking around for a tutorial on designing a furnace exhaust stack for wind/seismic/etc. and really not finding much useful online. There are a ton of software options to buy, and we used to use STAAD pro, but what I'm wanting to do is go through the hand calculations so I understand it better. I'm coming at this as a chemical engineer/process engineer who has to work with the mechanical/structural guys.

Is there anything useful out there as a reference? I'm tempted to just sit and read STS-1 over and over but after one pass through it doesn't appear to really give me what I need, it's more a reference regulating you once you already know what you're doing.

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u/raoulduke25 Structural P.E. 10d ago

For seismic you need to read ASCE 7, chapter 15 (and maybe some of chapters 11 and 12 for some background). For wind, go to ASCE 7, chapters 26 and onward. The ASCE 7 standard is the building design load bible in the United States, so it's worth the couple hundred bucks to buy it.

You could easily get an old version for free, and that's probably a good place to start, but just keep in mind that if you want to make your analysis current at some point, you will need to make some adjustments down the road.

There are plenty of resources on ASCE 7, but it's best just to sit down and slog through it. If you get stuck on anything, just come back to this thread and ask away.

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u/metalski 10d ago

So you really think you could figure out the design parameters just from ASCE 7? I can probably get a copy.

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u/raoulduke25 Structural P.E. 10d ago

Yes, of course. It do it every day for structures of all sorts.

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u/metalski 10d ago

We've got 7-05, I'll give it a read.

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u/raoulduke25 Structural P.E. 10d ago

That's a fine place to start. Just keep in mind that the wind calculations change pretty drastically in ASCE 7-10 and again in ASCE 7-22. You should get your wind and seismic values from this website. Load combinations from ASCE 7-05 should not be used. For ASD, use 0.6 on wind and 0.7 on seismic. For LRFD, use 1.0 for both wind and seismic.