Jordan Smith is back in Huntsville, Alabama, to teach about wooden trusses at the CBS truss plant where there they have new technology to make the most modern truss available. Matt Risinger has uploaded a video called “Floor and Roof Trusses – ‘How it’s Made” where they show how trusses are made. Let’s find out everything you didn’t know about a wooden truss!
What is a Truss?
As Smith explains, a truss is an assemblage of parts connected by nodes to make a stable structure. The parts of the structure are only connected by tension and compression.
What Are the Parts of a Truss?
There’s the top chord, which is a diagonal upper member. The bottom chord serves as the base of the structure. The members in the middle, which connect the structure, are called webs. So, there’s a force that presses down in the upper middle section keeping everything together.
What You Didn’t Know about Trusses
In 1955, John Calvin Jureit invented the truss plate, which connects the nodes of the structure, preventing them from moving.
Designers tend to use software like Sapphire to create everything about a house, including every engineering constraint for the entire construction. The builder can request customization, add-ons, fixes, and more with the provided 3D model.
Thanks to these models, the saws at the plant know the entire look of the truss and can create it easily. These machines will also print a number on the logs so there’s complete traceability of the materials.
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