The Building Regulations, Part A – SI 138 (2012)
A1: Loading
1. A building shall be designed and constructed with due regard to the theory and practice of structural engineering to ensure that the combined actions liable to act on it are sustained and transmitted to the ground –
safely and
without causing such deflection or deformation of any part of the building, or such movement of the ground as will impair the stability of any part of another building.
2. In assessing a building’s compliance with 1, the variable actions to which it is likely to be subjected (in the ordinary course of its use for its intended purpose) will be considered.
A2: Ground movement
A building shall be designed and constructed with due regard to the theory and practice of structural engineering to ensure that subsoil movement caused by subsidence, swelling, shrinkage, or freezing will not impair the stability of any part of the building.
A3: Disproportionate collapse
1. A building shall be designed and constructed with due regard to the theory and practice of structural engineering to ensure that in the event of an accident its structure will not be damaged to an extent disproportionate to the cause of the damage.
2. For the purposes of 1, where a building is rendered structurally discontinuous by a vertical joint, the building on each side may be treated as a separate building whether or not said joint passes through the substructure.
A4 Definitions
‘actions’ – a set of forces (loads) applied to the structure (direct actions) or a set of imposed deformations/accelerations (indirect actions).
‘variable actions’ – actions for which the variation in magnitude with time is neither negligible nor monotonic – e.g. imposed loads on building floors, wind actions, or snow loads.
