Beam Bearing Minimum Contact Should Be____for Wood And ____for Construction Materials Methods Flashcards




I think it is probably good practice in most cases to have the beam or joist bear on something rather that have it nailed in, but is it required?

Gothic architecture allowed structures to maintain an open interior space, transferring more weight to the buttresses instead of to central bearing walls. The primary function of this wall is to enclose or divide space of the building to make it more functional and useful.

For triangular reaction distributions, the centre of reaction is at one third of the bearing length away from the edge of the clear span and for rectangular distributions, the distance to centre of reaction is at half of the bearing length.

Note the absence of concrete columns and beams. Most deaths in earthquakes around the world have occurred in load bearing masonry buildings. These buildings consume a lot of bricks, and are very heavy.


For the purposes of evaluating a steel beam+ unrestrained plate arrangement, here is a trivial “back of the envelope” style …Construction Technology Flashcards – Beam Bearing Minimum Contact Should Be____for Wood and ____for Masonry


It was my understanding that any main beam should have at least 3in of end bearing. I should mention it looked like they started to notch the sill plate, but then left it?

As for your detail, it would depends on what forces need to be transfered. I would prefer to use a hanger and see no real reason not to. Load-bearing walls are one of the earliest forms of construction. Humans have still not developed a machine that produces masonry!

Europeans built fine stone walled buildings with floor slabs made of wood beams and planks. Any additional masonry outside of the primary span is not used when distributing loads and determining the factored moment or shear that must be resisted by the beam.

The default bearing area with a bearing length of 300mm is shown below resulting in a triangular distribution of the reaction force. The edges of the clear span are also used in checking clause 11.3.6. The ledger is loaded ever 16″ o/c (almost uniformly) and it can be nailed every few inches o/c if needs be to pick up the joist loading, and distribute it into the structure.

The double 2×6 beam on two 4×4 posts, with one 2×6 beam on one side and one on the other side of the posts, is loaded much like ledger, at 16″ o/c (almost uniformly).

But, there are several problems; the load is taken out at only two post, not every few inches, so you may not be able to get enough nails in the two joints without splitting the beam or the post.

Finally, nails in a wet application have a nasty tendency of rusting through right at the joint faying surface in a very short time.

Construction Materials and Methods Exam 2 Flashcards

All the more so with nails of unknown origin and smaller dia. This latter condition exists at the post/beam and at the ledger connection since those joints tend to get wet in the rain and then take days to dry out.

I wouldn’t use the detail internally either, but some might, if they haven’t seen what nails look like after 10 or 20 years inside a joint.

Again this wasn’t the main steel girder which did have enough end bearing on the block wall, however this beam did have a big load considering it was a 2400sq ft townhouse.

Also look for a minimum of 3 2×4’s under the ends of most all engineered beams. Some need 4 or more in big houses. How much wait can a column support? But since there was a main steel beam, my guess would be that the beam is lighter where 1-1/2″ of bearing just may work. As to weight a load bearing column that would depend on thickness of metal and or diameter, or size of post if wood and how many floors above, etc.

Notice that except for very short spans (high shear load) or very deep higher capacity beams, the minimum bearing is generally 1-1/2″. The beam was a parallam(truss joist product). I mentioned the builder said it was ok?


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