This project aims to support the construction of tall wood buildings by identifying encapsulation methods that provide adequate protection of mass timber elements; the intention is that these methods could potentially be applied to mass timber elements so that the overall assembly could achive a 2 h fire resistance rating.
The following topics in the field of seismic analysis and design of mid-rise (5- and 6-storey) wood-frame buildings are included in this paper: Determination of the building period, linear dynamic analysis of wood-frame structures, deflections of stacked multi-storey shearwalls, diaphragm classification, capacity-based design for woodframe...
FPInnovations initiated this project to demonstrate the ability of wood exit stairs in mid-rise buildings to perform adequately in a fire when NBCC requirements are followed, with the intent of changing perceptions of the fire safety of wood construction. The objective of this research is to investigate further the fire safety afforded by exit stair shafts of combustible construction, with the ultimate objective of better consistency between the provincial and national building codes with respect to fire requirements for exit stair shafts in mid-rise wood-frame construction.
This report begins with a discussion of the mechanisms of flame spread over combustible materials while describing the NBCC prescriptive solutions that establish the acceptable fire performance of interior finish materials. It is noted that while flame spread ratings do give an indication of the fire performance of products in building fires, the data generated are not useful as input to fire models that predict fire growth in buildings.
The cone calorimeter test is then described in some detail. Basic data generated in the cone calorimeter on the time to ignition and heat release rates are shown to be fundamental properties of wood products which can be useful as input to fire models for predicting fire growth in buildings.
The report concludes with the recommendation that it would be useful to run an extensive set of cone calorimeter tests on SCL, glue-laminated timber and CLT products. The fundamental data could be most useful for validating models for predicting flame spread ratings of massive timber products and useful as input to comprehensive computer fire models that predict the course of fire in buildings. It is also argued that the cone calorimeter would be a useful tool in assessing fire performance during product development and for quality control purposes.
The nature and the complexity of building codes, including the fire regulations, result in mainly manual verification and, therefore, in subjective potential interpretations or errors. In the case of timber construction, the fire safety regulations are moreover a challenge due to the combustibility of the material. Further integration of fire safety is needed during the design process in order to increase the reliability of the designs in terms of fire safety. Building information modelling (BIM) technologies offer today new tools for automating different tasks in the construction process. The different approaches and available tools have been therefore compared in the context of fire protection code compliance. For that matter, criteria applicable to the tools have been identified based on literature review and on the National Building Code of Canada prescriptive provisions, but also based on a practical manipulation of the available tools. The potential of the different tools is therefore assessed based on their integration of the fire protection concepts and on their adaptability to BIM. This contextualized comparison has shown that the fire protection integration in BIM is limited. The tools for performance-based fire protection design are not exploring enough the information contained by the building model that is beyond the geometry. The BIM-based compliance checking tools, in turn, contain insufficient space for fire safety regulations checking as advanced spatial study is required for this purpose. Thus, this paper demonstrates the need for further development in terms of exploiting the building models’ semantics in the fire protection context.
The role of the building envelope research team in this project was to assess whether midrise wood-frame (LWF) and cross-laminated timber (CLT) building envelope solutions developed by the fire research team to meet the fire provisions of the National Building Code (NBC) 2010 Part 3 Fire Protection, would also meet the NBC Part 5 Environmental Separation requirements relating to the protection of the building envelope from excessive moisture and water accumulation. As well, these wood-based mid-rise envelope solutions were to be assessed for their ability to meet Part 3 Building Envelope of the National Energy Code for Buildings (NECB) 2011. Requirements relating to heat, air, moisture, and precipitation (HAMP) control by the building envelope are included in Part 5 Environmental Separation of the NBC 2010. Part 5 addresses all building types and occupancies referred to in Part 3, but unlike requirements for fire protection, this section of the code was written more recently and is generic, including requirements that are more objective-oriented rather than prescriptive requirements pegged to specific constructions systems. The investigated methodologies developed and adapted for this study took those code characteristics into account.
The objective of the task is to select, from the 679 locations in Table C-2 of the 2010 National Building Code of Canada (NBC 2010), several representative locations for which long-term historical weather data exists. This information from these locations can subsequently be used to determine the exterior boundary conditions for input files for hygrothermal simulation programs and hygrothermal testing in the laboratory.
This report discusses the selection of locations for the hygrothermal simulation task of the project on Mid-rise Wood Buildings and the determination of spray-rates and pressure differentials for the water penetration testing portion of the project.
This paper examines CLT-steel hybrid systems at three, six, and nine storey heights to increase seismic force resistance compared to a plain wood system. CLT panels are used as infill in a steel moment frame combining the ductility of a steel moment frame system with a stiffness and light weight of CLT panels. This system allows for the combination of high strength and ductility of steel with high stiffness and light weight of timber. This thesis examines the seismic response of this type of hybrid seismic force resisting system (SFRS) in regions with moderate to high seismic hazard indices. A detailed non-linear model of a 2D infilled frame system and compared to the behavior of a similar plain steel frame at each height.
Parametric analysis was performed determining the effect of the panels and the connection configuration, steel frame design, and panel configuration in a multi-bay system. Static pushover loading was applied alongside semi-static cyclic loading to allow a basis of comparison to future experimental tests. Dynamic analysis using ten ground motions linearly scaled to the uniform hazard spectra for Vancouver, Canada with a return period of 2% in 50 years as, 10% in 50 years, and 50% in 50 years to examine the effect of infill panels on the interstorey drift of the three, six, and nine storey. The ultimate and yield strength and drift capacity are determined and used to determine the overstrength and ductility factors as described in the National Building Code of Canada 2010.
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.
Figure 1 shows a floor plan and elevation along with the preliminary shear wall locations for a sixstorey wood-frame building. It is assumed some preliminary calculations have been provided to determine the approximate length of wall required to resist the lateral seismic loads.
If the preliminary design could not meet the drift limit requirement using the base shear obtained based on the actual period, the shear walls should be re-designed until the drift limit requirement is satisfied.
