News articles and reports cite fire and seismic safety concerns related to wood design and construction with a call for more research. Think Wood is answering this call. The Think Wood Research Library, launched in 2017, is stocked with nearly 900 pieces of research to aid architects, engineers and other industry professionals in building safe buildings that can stand the test of time.
For example, research shows that fire can be controlled in wood buildings when the proper protections are in place. The Think Wood Research Library offers several studies that address the fire performance of wood:
- Glulam Connection Fire Test Summary Report – Demonstrates the fire resistance rating of off the shelf glulam beam-to-column connections in Type IV construction.
- Fire Safety Summary: Fire Research Conducted for The Project on Mid-Rise Wood Construction – Provides technical data in the areas of fire safety, acoustics and building envelope performance of mid-rise (and taller) wood buildings.
- Calculating the Fire Resistance of Exposed Wood Members – Provides guidance for designing wood members so that a cross section of wood remains to sustain design loads for the required duration of fire exposure.
- Full Scale Tests on The Performance of Hybrid Timber Connections in Real Fires – Examines the fire behavior and resistance of unprotected hybrid connections involving a glulam timber beam and steel columns in typical fires.
“While the fire performance of mass timber has been studied for many years and is broadly accepted for prescriptive design uses, more industry research and resources are needed to evaluate the structural fire safety of the material when it is used for taller buildings or used with new mass timber technologies,” says David Barber, fire safety engineer and principal at Arup. “We are proud to have our ‘Glulam Connection Fire Test Report’ hosted on the Think Wood Research Library to help bridge this knowledge gap.”
Seismic concerns pose another design challenge, particularly in active seismic regions of the U.S. Many studies available in the Think Wood Research Library evaluate the seismic performance and resilience of wood buildings:
- Seismic Performance of Wood Mid-Rise Structures – Summarizes the results of a state-of-the-art literature review of studies and surveys on seismic performance of mid-rise wood structures.
- Mass Timber Rocking Panel Retrofit of a Four-Story Soft-Story Building With Full-Scale Shake Table Validation – Summarizes preliminary findings of a full-scale shake table test of a two-story mass timber building conducted in 2017.
In addition to fire and seismic resources, the Research Library houses case studies, reports and research papers on a range of other design topics – from acoustics and vibrations, to energy and environment, to building codes and cost.
Check out the full Think Wood Research Library for more information on the advancements in the performance of wood and its advantages in the built environment.