The objective of this project was to quantify and compare the environmental impacts associated with alternative designs for a typical North American mid-rise office building. Two scenarios were considered; a traditional cast-in-place, reinforced concrete frame and a laminated timber hybrid design, which utilized engineered wood products (cross-laminated timber (CLT) and glulam). The boundary of the quantitative analysis was cradle-to-construction site gate and encompassed the structural support system and the building enclosure. Floor plans, elevations, material quantities, and structural loads associated with a five-storey concrete-framed building design were obtained from issued-for-construction drawings. A functionally equivalent, laminated timber hybrid design was conceived, based on Canadian Building Code requirements. Design values for locally produced CLT panels were established from in-house material testing. Primary data collected from a pilot-scale manufacturing facility was used to develop the life cycle inventory for CLT, whereas secondary sources were referenced for other construction materials. The TRACI characterization methodology was employed to translate inventory flows into impact indicators. The results indicated that the laminated timber building design offered a lower environmental impact in 10 of 11 assessment categories. The cradle-to-gate process energy was found to be nearly identical in both design scenarios (3.5 GJ/m2), whereas the cumulative embodied energy (feedstock plus process) of construction materials was estimated to be 8.2 and 4.6 GJ/m2 for the timber and concrete designs, respectively; which indicated an increased availability of readily accessible potential energy stored within the building materials of the timber alternative.
A Comparative Life Cycle Assessment of Two Multistory Residential Buildings: Cross-Laminated Timber Vs. Concrete Slab and Column with Light Gauge Steel Walls
This study provides a comparative life cycle assessment (LCA) of a 4060 m2, 4-storey cross laminated timber (CLT) apartment building located in Quebec City, Canada and an equivalently designed building consisting of reinforced concrete slabs and columns with light gauge steel studded walls (CSSW). The emergence of CLT as a structural material that can be used in mid-rise building structures combined with limited work investigating the environmental performance of CLT in building applications provides the motivation for this comparative study.
Cross Laminated Timber (CLT), which is made by laminating dimension lumber at right angles, is an innovative high-performance building material that offers many positive attributes including renewability, high structural stability, storage of carbon during the building life, good fire resistance, possibility of material recycling and reuse. It is conceptually a sustainable and cost effective structural timber solution that can compete with concrete in non-residential and multi-family mid-rise building market. Therefore, there is a need to understand and quantify the environmental attribute of this building system in the context of North American resources, manufacturing technology, energy constraints, building types, and construction practice. This study is to compare energy consumption of two building designs using different materials, i.e. CLT and concrete.
The designs were based on a five-storey office building, Discovery Place-Building 12, which is located in Burnaby, British Columbia, at 4200 Canada Way. The existing building was built with reinforced concrete. Embodied energy was calculated based on the total amount of material required for each of the building systems. Operational energy was calculated using eQUEST, an energy usage modeling software tool. The environmental impacts of the buildings were evaluated by comparing the total energy consumption through the building life.
CLT has lower non-renewable energy consumption compared to concrete in terms of material acquisition, manufacturing and transportation. Previous studies shew that operational energy accounts for the main amount of total energy use in buildings during their service life. Hence, the importance of embodied energy increases by reducing operational energy consumption. CLT has lower embodied energy compared to concrete. Therefore, the advantage of using CLT as a construction material is becoming greater by designing low energy or passive buildings.
The largest source of energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions in Canada and around the world is buildings. As a consequence, building designers are encouraged to adopt designs that reduce operational energy, through both increasingly stringent energy codes and voluntary green building programs that go beyond code requirements. Among structural building materials, wood has by far the lowest heat conductivity. As a result it is typically easier to meet certain insulation targets (e.g., thermal transmission and effective thermal resistance) with wood-based wall systems when following current construction practices. Good envelopes greatly contribute to energy efficient buildings. However, there are many factors in addition to building envelope insulation levels that affect the operational energy of a building. This study aims to provide designers with information which will assist them to choose energy efficient exterior wall systems by providing energy consumption estimates for an archetypal 6-storey residential building. Comparisons were made among several exterior wall systems including light wood-framing, cross-laminated timber (CLT), steel-stud framing, and window walls, for a range of structural systems including structural steel, light wood-frame, CLT, heavy timber, and concrete. The opaque exterior wall assemblies targeted meeting the minimum thermal requirements based on the National Energy Code of Canada for Buildings (NECB. NRC 2011). A 3-D method was used to calculate effective R-values of these exterior walls by taking into account all thermal bridging, in comparison with a parallel-path flow method in compliance with the NECB. Three glazing ratios, including 30%, 50%, and 70%, and two efficiency levels for Heating, Ventilation, & Air Conditioning (HVAC) systems, termed basic HVAC and advanced HVAC, were also assessed. Whole-building energy consumption was simulated using EnergyPlus. Four climates, from Zone 4 to Zone 7, with cities of Vancouver, Toronto, Ottawa, and Edmonton to represent each climate, were selected in this study. The energy assessment was conducted by Morrison Hershfield.
Controlled rocking heavy timber walls (CRHTW) were originally developed in New Zealand as a lowdamage seismic force resisting system using Laminated Veneer Lumber (LVL). This paper examines one way of adapting them to regions of low-to-moderate seismicity in North America, using Cross-Laminated Timber (CLT) composed of Canadian timber species. In particular, the adaptation simplifies the CRHTW by omitting supplemental energy dissipation and minimizing the potential for long-term damage to the timber from the post-tensioning. Key assumptions that are used in the design and analysis stages are evaluated with regard to the difference between timber products, and the structural performance of a prototype CRHTW design is confirmed by nonlinear time history analysis. Despite the lack of supplemental energy dissipation, the prototype design performs well with negligible residual drifts and a median peak roof drift of 0.63%. Future research is identified for the continued development of the adapted CRHTW.
Project contact is Eric Wood at Morrison Hershfield (Canada)
Summary
The project develops building archetypes, cost data and energy modelling to allow users to cost out mass timber buildings from basic, code-compliant buildings to high-performing, energy-efficient, low-emitting buildings. It will help quantity surveyors, designers, and other decisionmakers undertake business-case development by clarifying cost variables associated with mass-timber construction.
The Canadian Wood Council commissioned the Athena Sustainable Materials Institute to update the Institute’s 2012 cradle-to-gate LCA of Canadian glulam production in support of a joint N. American environmental product declaration (EPD) initiative. Consequently, the previous research has been updated with new primary gate-to-gate production data, revised background data, and this new report. This research has been completed in accordance with the most recent version of FPInnovations PCR for North American Structural and Architectural Wood Products.
Over the past several decades, environmental issues have become an increasing priority for both government and private industry alike. Here in North America the emphasis has gradually broadened from site-specific environmental degradation to include the characterization of product burdens. Similarly, many private companies and/or their respective trade associations have increasingly emphasized environmental information and often share this information with their customers in the form of a environmental product declaration (EPD). Life cycle assessment (LCA) is the backbone on which a Type III EPD is based.
The use of LCA is growing in the mainstream as green building ratings systems (e.g., LEED V4 and Green Globes), government procurement policies, and pollution prevention programs are contemplating or already incorporating the use of environmental performance measures that can only be objectively provided through a thorough LCA study. Similarly, many product manufacturing companies are adopting “design for the environment” environmental management systems to either reduce the overall mass or material complexity of their products or to streamline their manufacturing processes and consequently reduce environmental burdens emanating from their plants, as well as making it easier for their products to be recycled at their end-of-life.
The Canadian Wood Council commissioned the Athena Sustainable Materials Institute to update the Institute’s 2012 cradle-to-gate LCA of Canadian LVL production in support of a joint N. American environmental product declaration (EPD) initiative. Consequently, the previous research has been updated with new primary gate-to-gate production data, revised background data, and this new report. This research has been completed in accordance with the most recent version of FPInnovations PCR for North American Structural and Architectural Wood Products.
The Canadian standard for engineering design in wood (CSA O86) adopted the European yield model for calculations of the lateral resistance of connections with dowel-type fasteners. This model takes into account the yielding resistance of the fastener, the assembly's geometry and the embedment strength of wood. The latter is considered a function of the relative density of wood and diameter of the fastener. The purpose of this study is to verify the significance of these variables as applied to the embedment strength for threaded dowel-type fasteners of diameters 6.4 mm and greater in Canadian glulam products. The importance of this research is justified by the growing interest in the use of large-diameter threaded fasteners in heavy timber and hybrid structures of high load-bearing capacity. Based on the results of 960 tests, a new design model for the embedment strength is proposed for potential implementation in CSA O86 standard and the impact of such a change is presented.
The Canadian standard for engineering design in wood (CSA O86) adopted the European yield model for calculations of the lateral resistance of connections with dowel-type fasteners. This model takes into account the yielding resistance of the fastener, the assembly's geometry and the embedment strength of wood. The latter is considered a function of the relative density of wood and diameter of the fastener. The purpose of this study is to verify the significance of these variables as applied to the embedment strength for threaded dowel-type fasteners of diameters 6.4 mm and greater in Canadian glulam products. The importance of this research is justified by the growing interest in the use of large-diameter threaded fasteners in heavy timber and hybrid structures of high load-bearing capacity. Based on the results of 960 tests, a new design model for the embedment strength is proposed for potential implementation in CSA O86 standard and the impact of such a change is presented.
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