Sustainable timber building and its carbon emission analysis in the LINE-NEOM

Abstract

Timber is arguably the oldest construction materials that human have used since the dawn of civilization. Since the last few centuries, the invention of concrete and steel materials has limited timber uses to small and medium structural applications. The renaissance of timber construction has been felt recently due to the emergence of engineered massive timber elements that can perform similar structurally to that of concrete. The main objective of this paper is to study feasibility using massive timber element in building to be constructed in the futuristic city LINE-NEOM, Saudi Arabia. The main motivation of this study is the sustainability aspect of timber that can contribute to zero carbon emission for buildings, which will be one of the major environmentally friendly goals for LINE. Literature survey was conducted to demonstrate that timber is promising construction material for future building. A comparative case study of multi-story building constructed using traditional reinforced concrete and massive timber elements was performed. One particular type of massive timber element called Cross Laminated Timber (CLT) was used in this study. Key structural performance of building was compared using applicable design code criteria. Furthermore, carbon emission of buildings constructed with reinforced concrete and CLT was analyzed and compared. The structural analysis and design results indicated that the CLT building was acceptable in term of lateral deformation or drift under critical combination of lateral and gravity loads. The carbon emission comparison showed that CLT building outperformed the reinforced concrete building significantly. As was anticipated, the CLT building stored significant amount of carbon making it an excellent alternative materials for buildings in LINE that has goal to be zero-net carbon’s city.