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What are folk supports in structural engineering?
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Hi friends, Folk supports are used in the lateral torsional buckling analysis of timber, steel and precast concrete beams. Whether the supports are folk supports or not has a huge impact on the buckling resistance of the beams. In this newsletter, you’ll learn what folk supports are, and I show you 5 examples of supports which are and are not folk supports. What Exactly is a Fork Support?Short explanation: The term fork support means that, at support, the beam is prevented from twisting around its longitudinal axis. I think it took me 1-2 years of professional experience to fully understand what a fork bearing is. And I still discuss it with my colleagues in the office from time to time: Is this a fork support or not? Even when checking other people’s reports, I often see that this boundary condition is entered incorrectly in the structural design software. In my opinion, the problem is that the boundary conditions of calculation examples at university are usually given. For example, you have to verify a simply supported IPE steel beeam with fork supports for lateral torsional buckling. But how must the connection of the IPE beam to the column be designed so that it can be calculated as a fork support? You’ve finished your bachelor’s or master’s degree, and you’re doing structural analysis for the first time. Then, in software programs such as MB Statik, Frilo, or Polybeam from PolyStruc, you have to select the support type, such as fork support, horizontally supported at the top or bottom, or unsupported. I always found it very difficult to determine if a beam at risk of buckling horizontally is supported by a fork or at the top—because you don’t learn that at university. After a few projects and some professional experience, you’ve seen a few connections, and you slowly begin to understand the bearing types. Here are a Few Examples of Connections That are Fork Bearings and Those that are NotFinal WordsAlright, this is how to design a folk support. I hope this helped. Enjoy the rest of the week and your weekend. I’ll see you next Wednesday for the next newsletter. Let’s design better structures together, Laurin. ↓ Follow me on Social Media. ↓ |
Structural Basics
Personal insights and calculation guides from the world of structural engineering directly in your inbox.
Hi friends, There are a bunch of different timber floor types that we can choose from. timber joist floor CLT floors prefabricated timber floors (differs from manufacturer to manufacturer) timber composite floors I have personally worked with all 4 types already. Timber structures are quite common in Germany and more and more trendy as sustainability becomes more important. We'll cover some of these floor systems in the next couple of weeks. Today, we'll start with the timber joist floor, and...
Hi friends, One disadvantage of timber floors is its vibration behavior because of its little weight. Vibration is a phenomenon in structural engineering that needs to be investigated for light-weight structures like timber floors or steel staircases. Because if the frequencies are too little, people might feel unwell. In many cases, that's the vibration analysis is the most critical verification of timber floors. In this newsletter, I'll show you how to verify timber joist floors for...
Hi friends, Today we'll design a timber column. The 4 Steps To Verify Timber Columns According To Eurocode Let's use the center column of the canopy structure that we also used in the last episodes as an example to show the calculation steps. Step #1: Define the material properties of the timber element We first define the material properties of the timber column. In this tutorial, we'll use C24 as the timber material. For small structures like this which aren't exposed to big loads, C24 is...