Concentrated loads
Concentrated loads (or point loads) are single loads that act over a relatively small area, they can be dead loads such as columns, or live loads, such as people whose full weight applies a force over the area of their feet when standing up, or a table which applies forces from the weight of a table through the small area at the bottom of the table legs.
This is in contrast to loads such as distributed loads or uniformly distributed loads (UDL), where the the load is distributed across a region of an element such as a beam or slab.
Point loads are expressed by calculating the total load over the object's surface or length and attributing the entire load to its centre point.
[edit] Related articles on Designing Buildings
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