Q2. Do calculations to establish what is the permanent action (dead load), G, you should use for design of the pair of main floor beams shown in Figure 5 (the beams are located mid-way between gridlines 1 and 2 and span between timber columns on gridlines A and B1). The main beams consist of two solid timber beams, coupled together with blocking (of negligible weight) to act as a single beam element. Assume that we will use pairs of 300mm x 75mm sawn timber (NZ pine) sections for the main beams, 140mm apart.  Note the information regarding floor loads defined in question 1 is also relevant to this question because the gravity loads can be assumed to be distributed evenly onto the beam by the joists. Combine all dead load contributions and compute a uniformly distributed line load, wG (in kN/m), acting on the pair of main beams.

a) What is the dead load contributed from the beam self-weight? [kN/m] [3 d.p]