Etabs Mass Summary By Story Apr 2026

The "Where is my Mass?" Mystery Here is the most common panic moment for engineers: "I assigned a 10-inch slab, beams, columns, and walls... so why does the Mass Summary show almost nothing on the roof?"

But here is a hard truth:

But when he ran the modal analysis, the building had massive torsion. He spent days adding shear walls. etabs mass summary by story

ETABS doesn't just use "dead load." It calculates mass based on your load combinations. Specifically, for seismic analysis (per ASCE 7, IS 1893, or Eurocode 8), it typically uses:

If you modeled a concrete slab but forgot to assign Self Weight Multiplier = 1 (under ), ETABS will only include the superimposed dead loads (finishes, partitions) and completely ignore the 150 pcf concrete you just modeled. The "Where is my Mass

If you model a semi-rigid diaphragm, ETABS distributes mass to every joint in the slab. If you model a rigid diaphragm, ETABS lumps the entire floor’s mass at the Center of Mass (CM).

If you’ve ever run a seismic analysis in ETABS, you’ve probably scrolled past the Mass Summary by Story table. It looks harmless enough—just a few columns of numbers under the Display > Show Tables > Analysis > Results > Structure Output menu. ETABS doesn't just use "dead load

If you use Rigid Diaphragms, your Mass Summary will show a single point mass at the CM. This is fine for simple boxes. But if you have a podium slab or a building with a hole (an atrium), using a rigid diaphragm will overestimate torsion because mass is artificially concentrated.