Full-scale industrial wood floor assembly and structures by welded-through dowels

Abstract

High-speed dowel rotation welding was used to manufacture a full-scale raised access floor, hence an applicable civil engineering structure, to demonstrate that scaling up of the welding technique is feasible. This was coupled with obtaining a more light weight floor assembly at equal stiffness by maximizing the rigidity of the suspended floor while minimizing the number of timber boards used to build it, and maintaining its vibration frequency high and its level of vibration low. Several assembly and connection combinations of two and three boards linked through welded wood dowels were tried out to determine the resistance of the cross-over joints that had to be used for building the floor. Deformation under 4 points static load of the floor was carried out to determine displacement under load and the floor vibration behaviour was determined using accelerometers. The fundamental first natural frequency measured does satisfy the requirements specified by Eurocode 5 well.