UNIVERSITY OF ABUJA

ASSIGNMENT/COURSE WORK

CIE 817 Properties and utilization of Timber

Faculty of Engineering
Department Civil Engineering
Title of Course CIE 817 Properties and utilization of Timber

Answer all questions using diagrams to illustrate your answer where appropriate.

1. Discuss the factors which influence the strength of timber and explain how the strength of timber is
assessed in practice.

2. Design of a timber beam (BS 5268) A timber beam with a clear span of 2.85 m supports a uniformly
distributed load of 11 kN including self-weight of beam. Determine a suitable section for the beam using
timber of strength class C16 under service class 1. Assume that the bearing length is 150 mm and that the
ends of the beam are held in position and compression edge held in line.

3. As illustrated below, evaluate the suitability of 20mm tongued and grooved floor boarding
spanning between 50mm x 250mm timber joists at 600mm centres. The boards are of strength
class C14 and for analysis purposes may be treated as a continuous beam. The maximum
moment occurs at an internal support and may be found using M = wL 2 /10. The maximum shear
force (reaction) occurs at the outside support and may be taken as V= 0.4wL.

Additional data:
Dead load inclusive of self-weight of boards 0.15 kN/m 2
Imposed load 1.5 kN/m 2