Wood Fastenings

The Wood Fastening 2 hour online PDH course is part of our Structural Course Category and provides guidance on wood fastening techniques. The course covers fastening methods such as nails, spikes, staples, bolts, screws, connection joints, metal plates, and joist hangers.

The strength and stability of any structure depend heavily on the fastenings that hold its parts together. One prime advantage of wood as a structural material is the ease with which wood structural parts can be joined together with a wide variety of fastenings—nails, spikes, screws, bolts, lag screws, drift pins, staples, and metal connectors of various types. For utmost rigidity, strength, and service, each type of fastening requires joint designs adapted to the strength properties of wood along and across the grain and to dimensional changes that may occur with changes in moisture content.

This course is based on Chapter 8 of the United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Forest Products Laboratory, General Technical Report FPL–GTR–190 “Wood Handbook: Wood as an Engineering Material”.

This course is intended for use by civil and structural engineers, design and construction professionals, students and others interested in learning about stress grades and design properties of lumber, round timber and ties.

Learning Objectives

Upon completion of this course, you will be able to:

• List different type of nails and their characteristics
• Calculate withdrawal resistance for nails and design connections of two wood members
• Calculate lateral resistance of nails and design connections
• Calculate withdrawal resistance and lateral resistance of spikes, staples, bolts, and screws
• Discuss various types of connection joints and calculate their capacities
• Explain the types and use of metal plates and joist hangers