Drying Shelter

Engineer
Dan Jepsen and Associates

Owner
CSR Softwoods

Location
Potassium Street, Narangba, Queensland

Date Completed
1992

Section

Glue Laminated Triangular Trusses

The building is a simple gabled roof shelter. CCA treated slash pine poles cantilever out of the ground and support the roof. This consists of longitudinal plywood box beams and transverse glue laminated pine trusses. All truss joints use 16 mm and 12 mm steel dowels.

Dowel joints in timber are effective and cheap and have been used in European structural design for many years, even as the main moment resisting connections in large portals. To make a dowel joint, a steel rod (the dowel) is driven into a tight pre drilled hole in the timbers to be joined. This achieves a direct load transfer. As there are a number of dowels in any joint, the moments and shear forces within the joint are spread over a wide area of timber. The dowels are staggered, reducing the chances of splitting the timber across the grain.

In keeping with the ease of the dowel joints, the remainder of this building is light and simple. To speed construction, the trusses were assembled as complete modules on the ground then lifted into place.