The possibility of cambering a timber beam by simply putting another beam on the top of it and inserting screws inclined at 45° relative to the elements axis is very useful in order to reduce deformation under load.

When rehabilitating historical masonry buildings it is certainly not rare to come to deal with sagged timber floors which cannot be buttressed due to heritage issues. A similar problem occurs when historical buildings are re-adapted to a new building usage which provides for an increase in floor loads. Therefore the development of a procedure which enables to “lift” a beam by just superposing a “dry reinforcement element”, could prove of some interest.

An analytical formulation has been proposed and experimental tests have been performed to validate the theoretical formulation. The resulting formula for determining the upward camber (given the mechanical properties of the beams
and of the fasteners) has shown the capability of reproducing the experimental behaviour with promising accuracy. The work led to the patent “METODO DI TRATTAMENTO DI TRAVI NONCHE’ STRUTTURA COMPOSITA PRECOMPRESSA” ITVR20120195.