MtnDon
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# Posted: 4 Nov 2011 15:34
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Have you ever wondered how many fasteners of what size should be used to secure two pieces together? Probably you made some guesses, like I have in the past. AWC has another handy calculator for sizing connections.
Connection Calculator
It covers bolts, lag screws, wood screws and nails.
Design method is usually set to ASD
Lateral Loading for most connections such as nailing a rafter to a ceiling joist.
In a connection like nailing a board to a post, the post is the Main member and the board is the Side Member.
For most calculations leave the fields such as, Load Duration Factor, Temperature factor, Angle of Load to Grain, etc at their default values. You can see by all those variables that a properly calculated connection has a lot more science behind it that stepping back and saying that looks about right.
The important result is the last figure, the Adjusted ASD capacity. That gives the load carrying ability of ONE of the selected fastener type, adjusted for the characteristics of the wood(s) selected.
Note that some calculations may show an error message when too short of a fastener is chosen. There are also rules, not given in the calculator, that come into play. Several smaller fasteners are usually better than one big one, but if the smaller fasteners are crowded too closely together that is also not good.
It's a starting point.
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