• Beams keep buildings standing.column image by Rainer Tagwercher from Fotolia.com
  
  Chances are you don't think too deeply about the structure of the buildings you enter into every day. When most people think of the skeleton of a building, generic wood works with vertical pieces of wood that obviously hold up the building come to mind. However, the architect, carpenter and structural engineer see much, much more. Every beam has a specific purpose, and a label to go with it. The following are just a few of those terms, and the purpose they describe.
  
  

Joists

• Joists are the beams that are closely spaced to support the building's roof and floor. Since they frequently run along the outside of a building--along with inside, as is structurally necessary--they are the beams people looking at an unfinished building are likely to see.
  
  

Lintels

• Lintels are the beams that can be seen over the openings in a masonry wall, such as windows and doors.
  
  

Spandrel

• Spandrel beams support a building's exterior walls, and may also support part of the roof and hallways. For example, these are the beams that run upwards through the hollow core of bricks that make up a wall, adding additional support and stability to the mortar holding the bricks together.
  
  

Stringers

• On bridges, these beams run under the bridge parallel to the road across it.
  
  

Floor Beams

• As opposed to stringers, floor beams run perpendicular to the road, completing the cross-hatched pattern you see when you look under a bridge. Floor beams work to transfer stress from the stringers to the bridge's supporting trusses.
  
  

Trusses

• Trusses, or struts, are formed when the ends of two beams met and are bonded to one another. The angle may vary, and the purpose of these structures is to help bear loads.