NY-08-011 -- Piping, Ductwork, and Conduit Seismic Restraints PDF

Modern building codes have brought a revolution to seismic restraining of equipment and systems. With this revolution comes confusion and installations that are substandard costing the construction industry time and dollars. The anchoring of equipment is well understood and relatively simple. And there is a new paradigm to qualify the equipment to operate after an earthquake for emergency type buildings. But that is a different story. This paper addresses the installation, design, and code issues associated with seismic restraints on ductwork, piping, and conduits. The seismic restraining of these systems is not relatively simple and requires anchorage to ceilings/roofs, lateral restraints in the form of cables or struts/ angles, and some sort of attachment to the system. For this paper, the lateral restraints will be referred to as supports and the vertical bracing of the system is a hanger. This language is comparable to the language used in the building codes which include both the International Building Code (IBC) and ASCE 7-05.