Wind Load Distrobution

The problem is being caused by the diagonal bracing members.  If I move them out temporarily, the wind load generator distributes load in a very regular manner to the horizontal and vertical members in each face.

So the question is, do the bracing members actually receive any load in the real structure or not?

The wind load generator produces nodal loads for closed structures anyway, so it's not applying load directly to those bracing members, but it IS allowing them to influence the tributary areas for each of the nodes.

Based on the fact that the bracing members do not connect to the vertical framing members that they cross, I am going to make the assumption that they do not actually receive wind load, and therefore they should not be allowed to influence the tributary areas that are used to calculate the nodal loads.  If this assumption is correct, then I have a couple thoughts.

1. You could temporarily remove the bracing members and let the automatic wind load generator do its thing.  Then you could print screenshots of the resulting nodal loads.  Next, you could remove the automatic wind load item, replace the bracing members, and manually model nodal loads to represent the wind loads.

2. Another option would be to discretize the wind pressure distribution using horizontal bands that coordinate with your framing bays.  Then you could group the bracing members and turn them off.  Next, you could use the FLOOR LOAD command to load the visible members in a way that simulates wind.  (Note that this would produce distributed member loads instead of nodal loads, but the overall effect for the purpose of preliminary foundation design would be very similar.)

Cheers,

Chris