Although engineered wood products such as glued laminated timber (glulam) and cross-laminated timber (CLT) have successfully eliminated the flaws inherently exist in conventional wood products, they are still not comparable with steel and concrete in terms of strength and stiffness. Among all different options for reinforcement, Carbon Fibre is relatively popular due to its high tensile strength, low weight, and easy installation. This study presents an analysis of flexural stiffness and stress distributions of CLT panels reinforced with carbon fibre mats, based on an analytical method and finite element method (FEM).
The deregulation of timber for use in large scale constructions has seen the addition of new innovative timber-based products to a category of products referred to as engineered wood products. A now well established addition to these products is cross laminated timber, or CLT for short. CLT products use a form of orthogonal layering, where several parallel wooden boards are arranged in a number of layers, each layer being orthogonal to the previous. The use of orthogonal layering allows for increased stiffness in the two plane directions, resulting in a lightweight construction product with high load bearing capacity and stiffness.
To evaluate the dynamic behaviour of structures, engineers commonly apply the finite element method, where a system of equations are solved numerically. Given a sufficient amount of computational power and time, the finite element method can help to solve most dynamical problems. For sufficiently large or complex structures the amount of resources needed may be outside the scope of possibility or feasibility for many. Therefore, evaluating the usage of certain design simplifications, such as omitting to models aspects of the geometry, or alternative forms of analysis for CLT panels may help to reduce the time and resources required for an analysis.
In this Master's dissertation, a seven-layer CLT-panel has been created. In the model, each individual board and the gaps between the boards are modelled. The seven-layer model is used as a reference to evaluate the possibility of using less detailed alternative models. The alternative models are created as a layered 3D model and a composite 2D model, both models omit the modelling of the individual laminations, resulting in the layers being solid.
The results show small errors for the alternative models when using modal analysis. Concluding that the modal behaviour and dynamic response of a CLT panel can be evaluated using a composite 2D model or a less-detailed layered 3D model. This significantly reduces the amount of time and computational power needed for an analysis, and clearly indicates the benefit of using alternative less detailed models.
Project contact is Sylvain Ménard at Université Laval
Summary
Designers of large buildings generally want floor systems with large spans (9 m). These floors are often sized by the requirement of vibratory performance and, correlatively, deflection. The composite wood-concrete floors allow large spans with reduced static height. They are a promising alternative to simple concrete slabs. Objective 1 - Determine the evolution of the natural frequency of the CLT-concrete composite floor as a function of the stiffness of the connector, and correlate the experimental results with the model by the finite element method. Objective 2 - Parametric study of the vibration performance of the CLT-concrete composite floor. The impact of several parameters on the dynamic performance of the floor will be determined, especially the characteristics of the constituent materials, connector and the creep of the floor. Objective 3 - Build the metamodels for the study of multi-objective optimization optimization of a wood-concrete composite floor solution in relation to a regional problem in Aquitaine.
The report aims to investigate norms, standards, guidelines and experience within the industry for how to design CLT (cross-laminated timber) regarding vibrations induced from humans. The following is being researched, ISO137, KL-trähandboken, Eurocode 5 and a new unpublished working draft of Eurocode 5 final working draft, Canadian CLT handbook and Cross-laminated timber structural design according to Eurocode from Austria.The conclusion is that the literature for CLT is non-existent in the current Eurocode 5 which only addresses timber floors with joists, however the new Eurocode draft suggests an update to include CLT which is similar to the norm CLT from Austria.The report contains a calculation part in which an analysis is conducted for a real project with calculations based on Eurocode 5 and the Eurocode 5 final working draft, the design tool Calculatis and FEM program RFEM. The calculations are compiled and evaluated.The calculation results show differences between the different standards. The natural frequencies are typically the same. The biggest difference is between the accelerations which is in direct relation to the modal mass, and the modal mass differs a lot between the calculations. It is understandable how Eurocode 5 final draft and RFEM calculate the modal mass, but not so for Calculatis as it doesn’t show any calculations in the technical documentation.There is a difference of the modal mass between Eurocode 5 final draft and RFEM, likely because EK5 calculate the modal mass for a rectangular floor simply supported at two or four sides. Whereas the RFEM model is not strictly rectangular nor is it simply supported everywhere, instead there are beams in some places. This suggests that caution should be regarded in calculations where floor structures have been simplified.
+in+Industrial+Buildings+in+Nordic+Climate+%e2%80%94+A+Case+Study){kind=link}
