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 carried out a survey with consultants and researchers on the use of analytical models and software packages related to the analysis and design of mass timber buildings. The responses confirmed that a lack of suitable models and related information for material properties of timber connections was creating an impediment to the design and construction of this type of buildings. Furthermore, there is currently a lack of computer models and expertise for carrying out performance-based design for wood buildings, in particular seismic and/or fire performance design.
In this study, a sophisticated constitutive model for wood-based composite material under stress and temperature was developed. This constitutive model was programmed into a user-subroutine which can be added to most general-purpose finite element software. The developed model was validated with test results of a laminated veneer lumber (LVL) beam and glulam bolted connection under force and/or fire.
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 t...
This building is a typical one-storey commercial building located in Vancouver, BC. The plan dimensions are 30.5 m x 12.2 m (100’ x 40’), with a building height of 5 m. The walls are wood-based shear walls, with a wood diaphragm roof and a steel moment frame at the storefront. The roof plan is shown in Figure 1. The site is Seismic Class ‘C’. Wind, snow and seismic figures specific to the project location are taken from the current version of the British Columbia Building Code (2012). Roof dead load is assumed to be 1.0 kPa and the wall weight is 0.5 kPa. The weight of non-structural items including mechanical equipment and the storefront façade has not been included in this example for simplicity.
Wood-concrete composite slab floors provide a promising solution for achieving long spans and shallow wood-based floor systems for large and tall wood buildings. In comparison with conventional wood floor systems, such long span and heavy floors have a lower fundamental natural frequency...
Utilizing Linear Dynamic Analysis (LDA) for designing steel and concrete structures has been common practice over the last 25 years. Once preliminary member sizes have been determined for either steel or concrete, building a model for LDA is generally easy as the member sizes and appropriate stiffness...
Nail-Laminated Timber (NLT) and box beam are efficient and economical engineered wood products. Although NLT has been used in North America for more than a century, only in recent years it has gained renewed interests as they have been seen as the most economical panel products used in mass timber buildings. Box beams, on the other hand, are lightweight and generally possess higher strength and stiffness than comparable-sized solid timber and are more efficient than solid timber large spans and loads.
In this report, existing design provisions and their limitations for the design and construction of NLT in box beam in Canadian standards are reviewed. For NLT, there is a general lack of information related to manufacturing, design and construction to ensure consistent manufacturing and installation practices. Therefore, it is difficult to research and document with confidence the full range of performance that can be achieved with NLT. It is therefore recommended that a North American product standard and design information on structural performance, floor vibration, fire resistance, acoustic performance, and construction risk mitigation measures (e.g. moisture and fire) be developed.
In CSA 086, design methods are limited to box beams with flanges and webs bonded with glue. As the flanges and webs of a box beam can be assembled by either glue or mechanical fasteners, it is recommended that design provisions for box beam with mechanical joints be also developed. With the information in Eurocode 5 and relevant supporting research papers, it is ready to be implemented.
The 2009 edition of CSA Standard O86, Engineering Design in Wood (CSA 2009), provides an equation for determining the deflection of shear walls. It is important to note that this equation only works for a single-storey shear wall with load applied at the...
Wood-frame construction is the dominant building construction in low-rise buildings. The growth in the urban population and the need to meet sustainability objectives will mean having to allow taller buildings in areas that were traditionally low-rise construction. While the need for higher and environmentally sustainable building solutions increases, the Canadian codes responsible for the health and safety of buildings continued to limit wood building solutions to four storeys. Mid-rise (5- and 6-storey) wood-frame construction is a natural extension of low-rise wood-frame construction. In 2009, the BC Building Code (BCBC) was amended by the BC Building and Safety Standards Branch (formerly Policy Branch) to allow mid-rise wood-frame construction. The amendment brought the BC Building Code more closely in line with the U.S. states of California, Washington, and Oregon, where mid-rise wood construction is permitted. More than 100 mid-rise wood-frame construction projects in BC followed the BCBC amendment. Later, the provinces of Québec, Ontario, and Alberta took steps to permit mid-rise wood-frame construction, and finally the Canadian Commission on Building and Fire Codes (CCBFC) accepted code change proposals to allow 5- and 6-storey wood-frame construction in the 2015 edition of the National Building Code Canada (NBCC). NRC, CWC, and FPInnovations worked collaboratively on a project, funded by Natural Resources Canada and several provinces to provide additional technical information to support mid-rise wood-frame construction. This Handbook consists of ten multi-disciplinary chapters, which have been prepared to facilitate the design and construction of mid-rise wood-frame construction in Canada. Building on the information that formed the basis of Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of British Columbia (APEGBC) Bulletin and the Régie du bâtiment du Québec (RBQ) guide, this Handbook covers broad design and construction topics and provides practical solutions by making use of the most recently developed technical and research information. The Handbook has been prepared to assist architects, engineers, code consultants, developers, building owners, and Authorities Having Jurisdiction (AHJ). It is designed to be used in conjunction with the upcoming 2015 edition of the NBCC and the 2014 Edition of the CSA Standard on Engineering Design in Wood. It also complements existing design aids such as the CWC Wood Design Manual.
This report summarizes the existing knowledge on building movement related to wood-frame construction. This knowledge includes fundamental causes and characteristics of wood shrinkage, instantaneous and time-dependent deformations under load, major wood-based materials used for construction and their shrinkage characteristics, movement amounts in publications based on limited field measurement, and movement estimations by construction practitioners based on their experience with wood-frame construction. Movement analysis and calculations were also demonstrated by focusing on wood shrinkage based on common engineering design assumptions, using six-storey platform buildings as examples. The report then provides engineering solutions for key building locations where differential movement could occur, based on the literature review as well as a small-scale survey of the construction industry.
The report emphasizes the importance of comprehensive analysis during design and construction to accommodate differential movement. Most building materials move when subjected to loading or when environmental conditions change. It is always good practice to detail buildings so that they can accommodate a certain range of movement, whether due to structural loading, moisture or temperature changes. For wood-frame buildings, movement can be reduced by specifying materials with lower shrinkage rates, such as engineered wood products and drier lumber. However, this may add considerable costs to building projects, especially when specifications have to be met through customized orders. Producing lumber with a lower moisture content adds significant costs, given the additional energy consumption, lumber degrade and sorting requirements during kiln drying. Specifying materials with lower moisture content at time of delivery to job site does not guarantee that wood will not get wet during construction, and excessive shrinkage could still be caused by excessively long time of exposure to rain during construction. On the other hand, effective drying can occur during the period between lumber delivery and lumber closed into building assemblies. Appropriate measures should be taken to ensure lumber protection against wetting, protected panel fabrication on site, good construction sequence to facilitate air drying, and supplementary heating before closing in to improve wood drying.
This report also provides recommendations for future work, including field measurement of movement and construction sequencing optimization, in order to provide better information for the design and construction of wood buildings, five- and six-storey platform frame buildings in particular.
