Strength of Temporary Wooden Guardrails Installed on Open Joists and Prefabricated Walls
Publication: Practice Periodical on Structural Design and Construction
Volume 25, Issue 2
Abstract
Guardrails are an efficient way to protect construction workers against falls from height. For residential construction, job-built wooden guardrails are quite common. This article investigates the strength of temporary wooden guardrails attached to open joists or prefabricated walls. More than 350 laboratory strength tests were performed on wooden guardrail systems installed on open joists and prefabricated walls. Besides the type of fastening hardware used, the influence of the position and number of nails and screws were also taken into consideration, as well as the number of spans of the guardrail system and the location of the loading point on the top rail. Results show that larger open joists generally offer a higher strength and that wood screws and straight nails reinforced with a corner bracket are the best fixture type for the posts. The critical configuration is when the load is applied directly on the vertical post.
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Data Availability Statement
Data gathered through experimental testing during the study (photos, videos, and load cell data) are available from the corresponding author by request.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to acknowledge the technical team from Institut de Recherche Robert-Sauvé en Santé et Sécurité du Travail (IRSST) for their help in the dynamic fall testing process and the IRSST for the funding of this research project.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Practice Periodical on Structural Design and Construction
Volume 25 • Issue 2 • May 2020
Copyright
©2020 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jul 29, 2019
Accepted: Oct 24, 2019
Published online: Feb 22, 2020
Published in print: May 1, 2020
Discussion open until: Jul 22, 2020
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