North American cross laminated timber is currently made of softwood lumber following the guidelines of the ANSI/APA PRG-320 manufacturing standard. In this study, the potential of manufacturing CLT panels using various hardwood species and engineered wood products (EWP) was investigated for their compatibility and the impact on the dimensional stability and aesthetics of the end products. Yellow birch, trembling aspen, sugar maple, laminated strand lumber (LSL) and laminated veneer lumber (LVL) were compared to 100% spruce-pine-fir group species (SPF) lumber made CLT panel. The bond line performance of the assemblies was tested as well as the dimensional stability and appearance of the panels when subjected to conditions with equilibrium moisture contents (EMC) of 4.5%, 12% and 16%. Results showed that higher density hardwood species were prone to delamination. LSL, LVL and trembling aspen yielded promising delamination results. Best overall dimensional stability results were achieved with EWP inclusive configurations. Aesthetic integrity assessment showed that the use of hardwood for the core layer and edge gluing of softwood outer layers had a negative impact. Overall, the study showed a great potential for manufacturing future composite CLT (CCLT) products using EWP and low density hardwood species. The cost premium of using these alternative materials would need to be offset by valuable sets of properties or by a reduction of the manufacturing cost.
The objective of this study is to evaluate the fire behavior of CLT manufactured with different types of SCL or lumber boards, namely with laminated veneer lumber (LVL), laminated strand lumber (LSL) and Trembling Aspen. The fire test data is also compared to those of CLT manufactured in accordance with ANSI/APA PRG-320 using solid-sawn lumber grades. More specifically, the study aims at evaluating the charring rates of this new generation of CLT panels as well as the impact of their manufacturing parameters.
The objective of this study was to examine new attributes and conduct economic analyses for composite CLT (CCLT) and value-added appearance-based CLT products manufactured with varying substitution of softwood lumber with structural composite lumber (SCL) and hardwood lumber. Incentives for including such materials could be aesthetic, structural and economic.
Structural and aesthetic property assessments were carried out on prototype CLT panels. Multiple CLT panel configurations (17) were evaluated to assess the effects of including hardwood and SCL materials in the layups. Presence of hardwood in the panels’ configuration generally led to higher checking and density. Because of the higher shrinkage of hardwood, the bondline suffered from more delamination. A lower density hardwood (aspen) was included in some configurations and exhibited a greater direct compatibility with current Canadian manufacturing process. Changes to this process, such as selecting a hardwood specific adhesive may lead to improvements.
+Made+with+Engineered+Wood+Products+(EWP)+and+Hardwood){kind=link}
