Project contact is Erol Karacabeyli at FPInnovations
Summary
To support NRCan's Tall Wood Building Demonstration Initiative, FPInnovations developed and published the 2014 Edition of Technical Guide for the Design and Construction of Tall Wood Buildings in Canada. More than 80 technical professionals comprised of design consultants and experts from FPInnovations, the National Research Council, the Canadian Wood Council and universities were involved in its development. The Guide has gained national and worldwide reputation as one of the most complete and credible documents helping to introduce to the design and construction community, and Authorities Having Jurisdiction the terms "Mass Timber Construction" and "Hybrid Tall Wood Buildings".
Since the publication of the First Edition, a number of tall wood buildings have been designed and constructed. Substantial regulatory changes are expected to happen based on the experience obtained from the demonstration initiative and the extensive research that has taken place domestically and internationally since the publication of the First Edition. These developments highlight a need for the Guide to be updated so that it aligns with efforts currently underway nationally and provincially and continues to lead in providing the design and construction community technical insight into new opportunities for building in wood.
The First Edition of the Guide helped to focus the efforts of the early adopters who participated in NRCan's Tall Wood Building Demonstration Initiative. Updating and aligning the Guide with the release of the new National Building Code of Canada and the Canadian wood design standard (CSA O86), and sharing the experiences gained from tall wood buildings built since the First Edition, will not only continue to expand the base of early adopters, but also help to move aspects of mass timber and hybrid wood buildings into the mainstream.
Vertical gypsum fire separation walls that have fire-resistive ratings evaluated in accordance with a recognized standard are permitted for use in building construction. When approved doors are inserted in such walls, the details must be presented for consideration as an “alternative solution”.
This guide is based on observations of two CAN/ULC S101 (ULC, 2007) tests on gypsum fire separation walls with S104 (ULC, 2010) approved closure penetrations. The guidance is intended to direct the designer’s attention to potential issues that might impact the performance of a closure penetration in a gypsum separation wall that use a thick wood-based sheathing (i.e. combustible) for carrying the weight of the fire door assembly. General guidance is provided on sizing the sheathing and the need for protecting the sheathing from fire, yet permitting the assembly to accommodate building movements in-service.
The purpose of this guide is to recommend considerations when designing the interface between a fire door (closure penetration) in proprietary gypsum separation walls. These considerations form only part of the alternative solution that will need to be presented to the AHJ for approval.
Although details are provided in Appendix VI to illustrate a possible solution, it is the responsibility of the designer to understand how the design is expected to perform. The guide discusses three scenarios to assist the designer in formulating an appropriate solution. These are performance under an extreme fire; performance under a limited fire; and performance under normal (non-fire) service conditions that may include high wind or high seismic event.
The current interest and growth of cross laminated timber (CLT) products has spurred interest in the manufacture of CLTs in the United States. The purpose of this paper is to explore the development of CLT materials from southern pine lumber commonly available in Virginia. A 5-layer CLT panel has been constructed using No. 2 southern pine lumber. Evaluation of mechanical properties, fire performance and acoustical performance were conducted. Results of these evaluations can guide the development and acceptance of CLT products in the International Building Code.
Thirteen Southern pine cross-laminated timber panels were tested in the intermediate scale horizontal furnace at the Forest Products Laboratory to determine the effects different adhesives and ply configuration had on fire performance. Four different adhesives were tested: melamine formaldehyde (MF), phenol resorcinol formaldehyde (PRF), polyurethane reactive (PUR), and emulsion polymer isocyanate (EPI). There were two ply configurations: Long-Cross-Long (LCL) or Long-Long-Cross (LLC) where “long” indicates the wood was parallel to the longer edge of the panel. The MF and the PRF prevented delamination and associated problems while the LLC configuration resulted in uneven charring patterns.
Building elements are required to provide sufficient fire resistance based on requirements set forth in the National Building Code of Canada (NBCC). Annex B of the Canadian standard for wood engineering design (CSA O86-19) provides a design methodology to calculate the structural fire-resistance of large cross-section timber elements. However, it lacks at providing design provisions for connections. The objectives of this study are to understand the fire performance of modern mass timber fasteners such as self-tapping screws, namely to evaluate their thermo-mechanical behavior and to predict their structural fire-resistance for standard fire exposure up to two hours, as would be required for tall buildings in Canada. The results present the great fire performance of using self-tapping screws under a long time exposure on connections in mass timber construction. The smaller heated area of the exposed surface has limited thermal conduction along the fastener’s shanks and maintained their temperature profiles relatively low for two hours of exposure. Based on the heat-affected area, the study presents new design principles to determine the residual length of penetration that would provide adequate load-capacity of the fastener under fire conditions. It also allows determining safe fire-resistance values for unprotected fasteners in mass timber construction exposed up to two hours of standard fire exposure.
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