The present invention relates to a beam shoe for attaching a (first) beam end-on to a load-bearing construction, especially to a second beam disposed in the same plane as the beam to be attached and running at right angles thereto, the beam shoe comprising an originally flat, one-piece, strip-like sheet-metal portion or blank, which is shaped to an upwardly open channel-shaped retaining member having a web-like rectangular bottom for bracing the beam to be attached on the beam shoe as well as two web-like, parallel retaining legs, the retaining member embracing, in assembled condition, an end portion of the beam to be attached at the underside and side faces thereof, the legs, which are bent over upwardly from the bottom at right angles and disposed along two opposite borders of the bottom, being provided with through holes for rod-like fasteners such as nails in particular in order to join the beam shoe to the beam to be attached, the inside spacing of the legs therefore being (at least) as large as (and if necessary somewhat larger than) the width of the beam to be attached, wherein a fastening flange provided with through holes for rod-like fasteners such as nails and/or screws is bent over at right angles along that longitudinal border of each retaining leg which faces the load-bearing construction (or if necessary the second beam), the fastening flange being designed to be placed with its outside face remote from the channel-shaped retaining member of the beam shoe on the load-bearing construction/the second beam and to be fastened thereto with rod-like fasteners such as nails and/or screws, and wherein the web-like bottom is reinforced by a (bottom) reinforcing flange or the like in order to increase its section modulus against sagging under relatively large load.
Beam shoes are used in wood construction for attachments of solid or glued laminated beams in the same plane. They have the advantage among others of simple, rapid and reliable assembly, without weakening the wood members at the attachment point.
Besides beam shoes having fastening flanges bent over outwardly at right angles from the retaining legs, there are known beam shoes having fastening flanges bent over inwardly at right angles from the retaining legs. Furthermore, there is also known a beam shoe which, instead of being provided with the two fastening shoes bent over from the retaining legs, is provided with a back wall running between the retaining legs, a fastening flange provided with through holes for rod-like fasteners for mounting the beam shoe on a second beam being bent over at right angles at the upper end of the back wall.
Beam shoes having two fastening flanges are generally fastened first to a main beam of the load-bearing construction. Thereafter the beam to be attached is inserted in the beam shoe assigned to it in such a way that it is braced on the bottom thereof and can then be nailed to the retaining legs.
Common to all known beam shoes is that—simply for cost reasons—they are made from an originally flat, one-piece sheet-metal portion (blank) which, after being cut out or stamped from heavy sheet metal of predetermined thickness, is shaped by means of appropriate machines or tools. In this operation, it is therefore very important from economic viewpoints to organize the shaping of the beam shoe in such a way that cutting of the blank can be achieved with the lowest possible losses and preferably without losses.
In beam shoes of the class in question, without bottom reinforcing flange, undesired or possibly even inadmissible sagging of the beam-shoe bottom occurs during relatively large load on the beam to be attached as a result of transverse forces acting vertically on the bottom of the beam shoe. In order to counteract or at least largely prevent this “cable effect”, bead-like stiffening ribs have been pressed into the bottom, but they have not led to an adequate increase of the section modulus compared with an unshaped bottom.
For this reason a reinforcing flange bent over at right angles inwardly or upwardly or else outwardly or downwardly has already been provided along the border of the beam-shoe bottom. In the finished beam shoe, this reinforcing flange is disposed in the plane of the two fastening flanges and protrudes perpendicularly from the bottom in the manner of a tongue. Nevertheless, even these configurations are not yet satisfactory for the desired goal of a substantially bending-proof bottom, since these tongues are narrower than the bottom and therefore are joined only to that bottom, but not to the retaining legs, and so the section modulus can be increased to only a limited extent in the lower portion of the channel-shaped retaining member.
A further disadvantage of known beam shoes of the class in question is that their blanks cannot be cut with low losses or even without losses, since the sheet-metal portion forming the reinforcing flange in the finished beam shoe protrudes in the manner of a tongue beyond the same bending line of the blank in the region of the middle blank portion forming the bottom after shaping. From this portion there is extended, into the two outer end portions of the strip-like sheet-metal blank, that portion which, after shaping, corresponds to the contour of the sheet-metal portion protruding in the manner of a tongue and forming the fastening flanges but not to the contour of the strip-like blank along the longitudinal border thereof. Under the best circumstances, therefore, it has been possible to counter this loss (of sheet metal) only if the portion of the blank forming the bottom is appropriately recessed along its border opposite the reinforcing-flange portion. However, this feature would lead to weakening of the bottom, even though its bending resistance is supposed to be increased with this feature.
Furthermore, it must be considered that the sheet-metal thickness of any wood fasteners will be kept as small as possible for cost reasons, although at the same time it has been assumed heretofore that the sheet-metal thickness of beam shoes for common applications must not be less than 2 mm precisely because of the feared bottom sagging.
The object of the present invention is to improve the beam shoe of the class described hereinabove especially to the effect that it can be formed from a blank created with low losses, preferably substantially without losses, while achieving a distinct increase of the section modulus of its bottom by means of a reinforcing flange provided in the region thereof, wherein, by virtue of the achievable bottom reinforcement, it can be used with a sheet thickness that if necessary is smaller than that of conventional beam shoes, such as 1.5 mm and less, and wherein, despite the achieved reinforcement, flush contact between the beam to be attached and the load-bearing construction/the second beam is possible without having to recess it (or the load/bearing construction/the second beam) in the region of the reinforcing flange.
This object is achieved according to the invention by the fact that the (bottom) reinforcing flange is formed by a strip-like sheet-metal portion running in the plane of the two fastening flanges, the sheet-metal portion extending at least over the entire width of the bottom between the lower end portions of the two retaining legs adjacent the bottom. Thereby the bottom provided with the reinforcing flange forms, together with the lower end portions of the two retaining flanges, a three-dimensional structure of high rigidity, and it can absorb the bending forces and torques developed at the bottom-corner edges largely without deformation.
In a beam shoe whose fastening flanges are each bent over outwardly from a retaining flange, it is preferably provided that the sheet-metal portion forming the reinforcing flange extends integrally downward from the lower end of the one fastening flange to the outside of the lower end portion of the neighboring retaining flange and further at the underside of the bottom to the lower end of the other fastening flange and from there merges integrally thereinto.
In this beam shoe, the channel-shaped retaining member comprising the two retaining legs and the bottom is therefore surrounded virtually all around, along its border facing the load-bearing construction/the second beam, by an integral, channel-shaped sheet-metal portion extending at right angles to the bottom and to the two fastening flanges, since the bottom reinforcing flange continues upward beyond the bottom and at its two ends merges into the respective fastening flange. Preferably, however, this surrounding portion is narrower in the region of the bottom and in a contiguous lower portion thereabove than in the region of the fastening flanges. This leads not only to a very considerable increase of the section modulus in the bottom region, wherein the bending torques developed under corresponding transverse-force load or the forces resulting therefrom can be diverted by that lower portion of the channel-shaped retaining member which is provided with the reinforcing flange into the fastening flange and then be absorbed thereby, but also to a possible decrease of the sheet-metal thickness for the same load and, last but not least, to the possibility of cutting the sheet-metal blank without losses.
Thus, whereas the bending line for bending over the fastening flanges in the sheet-metal blank for a conventional beam shoe without reinforcing flange runs from the portions forming the retaining legs along the rear border of the portion forming the bottom, thus bounding this portion at the rear, and whereas the reinforcing rib in the blank for a known beam shoe of the class in question is formed by a trapezoidal or rectangular portion that protrudes in the region of the sheet-metal portion forming the bottom and has a length shorter than the planned inside spacing between the two retaining legs, so that the blank is bounded at least pointwise by the bending line between the portion forming the reinforcing flange and the two portions forming the fastening flanges, this bending line in the blank for the inventive beam shoe runs continuously at a distance from the rear longitudinal border of the blank, with the result that, after shaping around this bending line, the reinforcing flange continues upward along both end portions around the bottom and merges smoothly into the fastening flanges, as will be further described hereinafter.
In another configuration, in which the fastening flanges may also be bent over inwardly if necessary from the retaining flanges, and in which the sheet-metal portion forming the reinforcing flange is bent over inwardly at right angles in a manner known in itself, this sheet-metal portion bears firmly with its two end faces against the respective inside of the lower end portion of one retaining flange, and preferably does so under (compressive) stress, so that—differently from in the prior art, in which the end faces of the reinforcing flange are spaced apart from the insides of the retaining flanges—a highly bending-resistant structure is also obtained in the bottom region of the beam shoe when it is in assembled condition, even if the reinforcing flange is not joined to the retaining flanges (especially by welding), since it is firmly clamped between the beam to be attached and the load-bearing construction/the second beam, and therefore cannot slip out due to possible buckling, and therefore can transmit the bending torques or forces imposed on it to the retaining legs.
The invention will be explained in further detail hereinafter in practical examples with reference to a drawing, wherein:
Along the longitudinal border of each retaining leg 10, 10′ facing second beam 3 there are bent over outwardly at right angles fastening flanges 13 and 13′ respectively provided with through holes 12 for nails to be driven in or with through holes 12′ for screws to be introduced. The fastening flanges can be placed with their contact faces 14 and 14′ respectively remote from channel-shaped retaining member 7 along second beam 3 and fastened thereto with nails and/or screws.
For reinforcement of the angle portions comprising respectively a retaining leg 10 or 10′ and a fastening flange 13 or 13′ there are provided, in the corner region of angle portions 10, 13 or 10′, 13′, two outwardly directed, bead-like convex structures 15.
Furthermore, directly in the angle edges between a retaining leg 10 or 10′ and fastening flange 13 or 13′ associated therewith, there are provided through holes 16′, which are designed such that further rod-like fasteners such as especially wood screws can be driven in obliquely relative to the longitudinal extent of beam 2 to be attached (see dot-dash lines in
As can be seen in particular in
Nevertheless—as shown in FIG. 4—the blank for the inventive beam shoe can be formed practically without losses from heavy sheet metal.
It is evident that two dot-dash first bending lines 20, 20′, around which the respective blank portions 10, 13 and 10′, 13′ located on the other side of bottom 8 to be formed are to be bent up at right angles to bottom portion 8, run on both sides of transverse centerline 19 of each strip-like sheet-metal blank 4, with a spacing of “a/2” (which is equal to half the bottom width “a”) relative to the transverse centerline 19, and that, running at right angles to first bending lines 20, 20′, there is a second bending line 21, around which the portions forming fastening flanges 13 and 13′ are to be bent over outwardly at right angles to adjacent retaining-leg portions 10 and 10′, wherein second bending line 21 runs continuously with a spacing b relative to rear edge 22 of middle portion 8 located between the first two bending lines 20, 20′, so that the region disposed between second bending line 21 and front edge 23 of the middle portion forms bottom 8 during shaping of blank 4 around second bending line 21, and the region disposed between second bending line 21 and rear edge 22 of the middle portion forms, in the region of bottom 8 as well as in the region of the two portions 13 and 13′ respectively adjoining it, a portion (which therefore is integrally contiguous) in which reinforcing flange 18 has height “b” (see
It must also be added that, in the region of fastening flanges 13, 13′ there is provided, in the region of the upper (larger) through hole 12′, a spike-shaped fixing projection 24 for fixing beam shoe 1 to second beam 3, the projection being bent over at right angles from the plane of the respective fastening flange 13 and 13′ toward the contact side, and at its bending border 24′ being provided with a notch as a predetermined breaking point, so that it can be removed, simply by knocking it off with a hammer if necessary, if fixing projections 24 are not needed or would even be a detriment, as would be the case if load-bearing structure 3 to which beam 2 is to be attached were not a wooden component.
This beam shoe differs from the beam shoe according to
This is made possible on the one hand by the fact that reinforcing flange 18 is provided adjacent its end faces 18′ with a recess 25 open toward its upper border. The purpose of the recess will be explained with reference to the blank illustrated in
As can be seen from
If, during shaping of blank 4, the portion forming reinforcing flange 18 is bent up at right angles to bottom portion 8, its outer end portions therefore protrude beyond first bending lines 20, 20′ and are located beyond the portions that in the finished condition form retaining legs 10, 10′. If these are then bent over upwardly around first bending lines 20, 20′, they then form the outer end portions of the (smaller) width “b′” as is illustrated in
In this configuration also, considerable bottom reinforcement is therefore achieved by reinforcing flange 18, although the blank is not practically loss-free as is the case for the configuration according to
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