Although not yet seen as common practice, building with cross laminated timber (CLT) is gaining momentum in North America. Behind the scenes of the widely publicized project initiatives such as the Wood Innovation Design Centre Building in Canada and the...
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.
Cross laminated timber (CLT) is a new engineered wood product that has experienced rapid growth and market acceptance for residential and non-residential construction in western and central Europe. Potential exists for rapid market adoption in North America if manufacturing capacities are developed...
Controlled rocking heavy timber walls (CRHTW) were originally developed in New Zealand as a low-damage 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...
The work presented in this report is a continuation of the FPInnovations' research project on determining the performance of the CLT as a structural system under lateral loads. As currently there are no standardized methods for determining the resistance of CLT shearwalls under lateral loads, the design approaches are left at the descretion of the designers. The most common approach that is currently used in Europe and North America assumes that the resistance of CLT walls is a simple summary of the shear resistance of all connectors at the bottom of the wall. In this report some new analytical models for predicting the design (factored) resistance of CLT walls under lateral loads were developed based on connection properties. These new models were then evaluated for their consistency along with their models that are currently used in North America and in Europe.
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