Structural Analysis of Wood Floor Systems

A combined Fourier series and finite element analysis of wood floors is presented, and its implementation in a computer with small core memory is discussed. Predictions using the model are compared with test results and good agreement is shown. The model includes the lateral and torsional deformation of the joists as degrees of freedom, and this permits the consideration of the effect that joist bridging has on the maximum floor deflection and the maximum bending stressed. In another application, the response of floors under uniformly distributed ad is simulated for different levels of within-fLoor variability in the elastic properties for the joists.