An Impressive Piece Of Engineering

[crokett]

I took my daughter to her swim lesson today. The roof over the pool was held up by massive wood beams. They had to be at least 80' long, probably closer to 100' after adding in the cantilever. They looked to be 8" thick and at least 6' tall and were made with what looked like layered 2x stock. I am wondering how they were made since I didn't see any fasteners holding them together. I also think they were made onsite, unless you can truck something that long down the road.

[Tom Slick]

was it a glulam? http://www.apawood.org/pablog/index....of-appearances

[jackellis]

More than likely a gluelam. We have three of them in our new home made of built-up 2x stock glued together. One that's 24" tall is the ridge beam for the semi-detached portion of the house. Two other shorter ones are purlins for the main roof. They're also used to support our decks. Very common out here for large spans.

[JR]

Frank Gehry used BIG gluelams for the Anaheim Ice project.

[crokett]

Yeah, probably a gluelam. I was thinking that looking at them. These things are massive though. They seemed to be too long to get in by truck, but what do I know?

[LinuxRandal]

Yeah, probably a gluelam. I was thinking that looking at them. These things are massive though. They seemed to be too long to get in by truck, but what do I know?

We had a customer whose job was to drive Bridge supports to the places where they would be place in or together (vertical supports or ribs) They can get trucked in, however it is tricky. They may also have had some hidden fasteners somewhere, that you wouldn't see unless up close.

[docrowan]

Tuesday I passed a truck hauling a windpower fan blade that had to be over 150' long. So it is possible to haul the beams you describe. However, gluelams aren't complex, highly machined pieces like big windmill blades so I suspect that they were built on site as you said.

[Papa]

Gluelams

Those laminated wood arches (LMA) have been around since the mid-twentieth century. One of the largest plants in the world used to be located in Magnolia, AR, where LMOL was raised (Southwest Unit Structures). The plant made the units of SYP on a factory floor with massive hydraulic presses. Their laminated wood rigid frames used to be quite popular in the construction of church sanctuaries. The factory shipped them all over the US on either rail cars or over-long truck trailers.

Papa

[pelligrini]

I've never heard of gluelams being field constructed. I seriously doubt an engineer or builder would risk the liability of field constructing one either.

[bruce hylton]

In the 60's and 70's we would sometimes build them in the field, but they were not usually cost effective. Of course most things started in the field and moved to a shop situation for cost reasons.