Wheel Loads on Structural Floors
Wheel Loads on Structural Floors
(OP)
Does anyone know of a publication that addresses how wheel loads are applied to structural floor slabs? I have a case where forklift is appling load to a structural floor made of 4" concrete slab on 2x10 floor joists. My preliminary calc shows the joist would fail. However, they have been using the slab since the 70's. there are starting to get some failures at the joist hangers not the wood. What this is telling me is my simplified approach to distrbuting the load is too conservative.
any suggestions?
any suggestions?






RE: Wheel Loads on Structural Floors
Justification for this is that chances of full live load being present simultaneously with the forklift load is very slim. How muc"reduced" live load to use for the second check above is engineer's judgment and how much the local building officials are willing to live with.
If anyone is aware of a specific code section that addressed this, please reply.
Cheers.
RE: Wheel Loads on Structural Floors
RE: Wheel Loads on Structural Floors
A few good sources on this subject are USACE Army TM5-809-12, which is free to download from their website. This manual covers forklift loads. Another source is the steel decking manual by USD, free as well. The decking manual can provide some insight on the application of the Building Load outlined in the various codes. I don't have it handy, but I think ACI 315 is the slab design manual (if that is not the number, I apologize, I am going from memory, but they do have a 60 page ACI code for concrete slabs under load).
One other point, the floor system you describe may not have been sized 'correctly'. It may not have failed because because it was never loaded to capacity. Oftentimes, structures don't fail under loading, not because they were designed correctly, but because they were never loaded to capacity.