How do we make houses and buildings out of wide wooden slabs that are strong enough to hold the people, furniture, and rest of the structure?
In: Engineering
Wood is a very strong material, trees, where wood comes from, can stand dozens to hundreds of feet tall.
And really, it is more than just second and third floors, one of the most common building types these days is a “Mixed” design where the foundation and first and possibly 2nd floor are steel and concrete, and then all of the floors above, up to 7 floors, are made of wood.
And it really is just engineering, you have a room, you know how big that room is, you can estimate how much load is going to be on that floor per square foot, pick how big your column and beams will be based on that estimated loading, multiply that by 1.5 for a little extra safety wiggle room, and you are off to the races.
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