Abstract
Wooden structures are increasingly being used in the construction of residential buildings. A common and often published reason to avoid wooden structures is their insufficient fire resistance, which reduces bearing capacity. For this reason, composite sandwich structures began to be designed to eliminate this drawback, as well as others. Recently, however, the trend is for a return to the original, wood-only variant and a search is underway for new technical means of improving the properties of such structures. Many timber structure technologies are known, but structures made from cross-laminated timber (CLT) panels have been used very often in recent years. CLT panels, also known as X-LAM, are currently gaining popularity in Europe. In the case of CLT panels composed of several layers of boards, they can be said to offer a certain advantage in that after the surface layer of a board has burnt and the subsurface layer has dried, oxygen is not drawn to the unburned wood for further combustion and thus the burning process ceases. CLT panels do not need to be specially modified or coated with fire resistant materials, although they are usually lined with gypsum-fibre fire resistant boards due to guidelines set out in the relevant standards. This paper presents a new method for the assessment of load-bearing perimeter walls fabricated from CLT panels without the use of an inner fire-retardant lining to ensure fire resistance at the level required by European standards (i.e. those harmonized for the Czech construction industry). The calculations were verified through laboratory tests which show that better parameters can be achieved during the classification of structures from the fire resistance point of view. The aim of the article is to utilize the results of assessment and testing by an accredited laboratory in order to demonstrate the possibilities of using CLT panels for the construction of multistorey as well as multi-purpose buildings in the Czech Republic.
Highlights
It has recently become a trend to construct buildings either wholly or mainly from wood
The experiment concerned the evaluation of a load-bearing peripheral wall composed of 84 and 124 mm thick cross-laminated timber (CLT) panels, some with and some without fire protection in the form of an inner lining made from gypsum fiber board that extends the period of fire resistance of the CLT panel for structural components of the DP3 type, as well as for components of the DP2 type
The 20 kN/m load bearing capacity required for an exerted load was fulfilled for the whole period of the test, i.e. 60 minutes
Summary
It has recently become a trend to construct buildings either wholly or mainly from wood. This is a way of building that has been neglected for many years in the Czech Republic, but the construction of wooden frame structures, panels, log cabins and timber houses is becoming more and more popular mainly thanks to the speed of construction, the price of the product, its emphasis on ecology and the aesthetics of wood. The use of timber in construction is restricted to undemanding, relatively small, mainly single storey buildings and simple structures such as family homes and cottages.
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