Joist

Claim 1

A joist for shoring concrete slabs, said joist consisting of an extruded, elongated channel member presenting an upper chord, a lower chord, and chord connecting means intermediate said chords; said upper chord defining a channel, substantially U-shaped in cross-section, having side walls with inner and outer faces, and a bottom wall with a flat inner face and an outer face, the inner faces of said side walls being angulated with respect to said planar bottom wall, and converging towards one another in the direction of the upper portion of the channel, the outer faces of said side walls being parallel to one another such that each of said side walls increases in transverse cross-section from the bottom wall to the free end thereof, said side walls being elastically deformable so that they can be sprung outwardly to permit the introduction of a removable insert into said channel, the transverse dimension of the inner face of the bottom wall being greater than the transverse dimension of the removable insert; each of said side walls terminating, at its upper free end in an upper outwardly extending horizontal flange which, in itself, terminates, in a downwardly extending stub-flange parallel with and spaced from its associated said side wall; said lower chord being defined by a pair of lower horizontal flanges each parallel with and spaced from said upper flanges and terminating in an upwardly extending stub-flange; said chord connecting means comprising a central web extending between said upper and lower chords, the stub-flanges on said lower chord being substantially parallel with said web member.