In wood-frame buildings of three or more stories, cumulative shrinkage can be significant and have an impact on the function and performance of finishes, openings, mechanical/electrical/plumbing (MEP) systems, and structural connections. However, as more designers look to wood-frame construction to improve the cost and sustainability of their mid-rise projects, many have learned that accommodating wood shrinkage is actually very straightforward. This publication will describe procedures for estimating wood shrinkage and provide detailing options that minimize its effects on building performance.
This client report on the acoustics research component regarding sound insulation of elements and systems for mid-rise wood buildings is structured into a main part and four appendices. The main part outlines the background, main research considerations and summarizes conducted research and major outcomes briefly. It is structured like the Acoustics tasks in the Statement of Work of the Mid-rise Wood research project to identify accomplishments. For details on the research, testing and results, the main part references to four appendices that contain more details including test plans, test methods, specimen descriptions and all test data that is vetted so far.
This report summarizes the acoustics research component regarding sound insulation of elements and systems for the research project on mid-rise and larger wood buildings. The summary outlines the background, main research considerations, research conducted and major outcomes. Further details of the design and the results can found in the appendix of Client Report A1-100035-02.1.
The goal of the acoustics research components was to develop design solutions for mid-rise wood and wood-hybrid buildings that comply both with the current National Building Code of Canada (NBCC) 2010 [2] requirements for direct sound insulation and with the anticipated requirements for flanking sound transmission in the proposed, 2015 version of the NBCC. In addition, the design solutions were to provide better impact sound insulation while still achieving code compliance for all other disciplines (interdependencies) as identified in the final report of the scoping study conducted in FY 2010/2011.
Advanced industrialized construction methods enable complex building components and systems to be built with high precision and quality. This manufacturing technique has an advantage to provide cost-competitive and high energy efficient building components and systems for both retrofits and new construction. This document gives an overview of the use of prefabricated panels in building Net Zero Energy Ready wood-frame multi-unit residential buildings (MURBs) in Edmonton.
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...
The objective of this research is to address a knowledge gap related to fire performance of midply shear walls. Testing has already been done to establish the structural performance of these assemblies. To ensure their safe implementation and their broad acceptance, this project will establish fire resistance ratings for midply shear walls. Fire tests will provide information for the development of design considerations for midply shear walls and confirm that they can achieve at least 1-hour fire-resistance ratings that are required for use in mid-rise buildings.
This research will support greater adoption of mid-rise residential and non-residential wood-frame construction and improve competition with similar buildings of noncombustible construction. This work will also support the development of the APA system report for midply walls, which will be a design guideline for using midply walls in North America.
In this paper, possibilities and challenges of novel robotic manufacturing processes for segmented timber shells are presented and evaluated. This is achieved by comparing two newly developed construction systems for segmented plate structures: one system consisting of cross-laminated timber elements that are connected with crossing screws, and one system consisting of light-weight, hollow components with finger joints as well as bolted connections. Segmented timber shells are introduced as an emerging structural typology transitioning from applied research to the building industry, enabled by new developments in computational design and digital fabrication methods. Although the two construction systems share their underlying segmentation strategy, they differ in their joint design approach and ensuing fabrication complexity. While the first construction system can be produced with conventional machining technology in the timber industry, the second system was developed in conjunction with innovative robotic manufacturing methods. In order to evaluate the relationships and trade-offs of fabrication complexity and performance, the two systems are compared on a range of metrics, including material use, environmental impact and costs.
The airtightness of building must be measured for the evaluation of building energy performance. To make up the reference airtightness value of wooden houses built in Korea, blower door test was carried out in the 36 houses. And, during the test, the causes of air leakage were inspected simultaneously. The result showed that the average of ACH50((air change per hour at air pressure difference 50Pa) measured from light timber frame houses was 3.5 h-1 and the post-beam construction was 5.1h-1. And, insulation with form of foams was advantageous in ensuring building airtightness than glass fiber batt. And, values below 1.5 h-1 of ACH50, threshold for application of artificial air change equipment, had appeared after 2010s. Also, the values varied according to who managed the building construction field. Although only one measurement of CLT(cross laminated timber) residential building could be obtained in 2016, the result showed good airtightness of building with 0.7 h-1.
Recent years have seen more architects and clients asking for tall timber buildings. In response, an ambitious timber community has been proposing challenging plans and ideas for multi-storey commercial and residential timber buildings. While engineers have been intensively looking at gravity-load-carrying elements as well as walls, frames and cores to resist lateral loads, floor diaphragms have been largely neglected.
Complex floor geometries and long span floor diaphragms create stress concentrations, high force demand and potentially large deformations. There is a lack of guidance and regulation regarding the analysis and design of timber diaphragms so structural engineers need a practical alternative to simplistic equivalent deep beam analysis or costly finite element modelling.
This paper proposes an equivalent truss method capable of solving complex geometries for both light timber framing and massive timber diaphragms. Floor panels are discretized by equivalent diagonals, having the same stiffness as the panel including its fasteners. With this method the panel unit shear forces (shear flow) and therefore fastener demand, chord forces and reaction forces can be evaluated. Because panel stiffness is accounted for, diaphragm deflection, torsional effects and transfer forces can also be assessed.
