Wooden Buildings Research Articles

Computational Segmentation of Timber Slabs with Free Column Placement

Modular floor slabs must be subdivided into prefabricable, transportable segments. This slab segmentation process conventionally uses a rectangular pattern, particularly for timber buildings. Regular segmentation patterns and strict column grids are ideal for rectangular building shapes, but restrict timber buildings to only some architectural uses, and are unideal for urban infill. Unfortunately, planning and constructing multi-storey wood buildings without a strict grid is still challenging. There is therefore a conflict between the desired column placement and the constraints imposed by building systems. This article investigates novel methods for segmenting timber floors supported by irregular column layouts. It proposes six different segmentation methods that are informed through Co-Design by structural, material waste, and transportation requirements. Co-Design allows for the direct integration and automated feedback of such diverse criteria into the early building design phase. These methods are based on three well-known computational approaches: Single-Objective Optimisation, Parametric Modelling, and Agent-Based Modelling. They could also be applied to other non-timber prefabricated floor systems. The segmentation methods are demonstrated on two example floor slabs with irregular column layouts, one with a rectilinear and the other with an irregular outline. The methods are compared using quantitative proxies for cost, fabrication time, architectural adaptability, and assembly complexity. More benchmark testing is needed, but initial results showed that the most efficient segmentations cannot adapt to irregular layouts, emphasising the need for a more adaptable approach to modular timber construction.

An investigation of indoor thermal environment of wooden school building (Case study of SDN 14 Pontianak)

A thermal environment is an affecting factor toward students’ comfort and health at school. One thing that gives an impact on the thermal environment is the selection of building materials, which is influenced by the thermal mass. The use of wooden materials has high potency in reducing global warming and supporting increased thermal comfort. This study aims to explain the inspection result of the school building which has 2 types of buildings, namely the wooden building and the concrete building. The purpose is to find out how the thermal environment is formed in the classrooms in those two buildings and the potential of wood materials. This study used a field measurement method where the case study building was SDN 14 Pontianak. The obtained result indicated that the air temperature variable showed the same phenomenon at each measurement time. The air temperature in the wooden building was always lower compared to the air temperature in the classroom of the concrete building, where the difference reached 2,68 °C. The other variable showed varied phenomena so a general conclusion could not be drawn. It might be affected by other aspects which were not calculated in this measurement.

Post-earthquake fire ignition model uncertainty in regional probabilistic shaking–fire cascading multi-hazard risk assessment: A study of earthquakes in Japan

Fires following earthquakes have significant impact on urban communities in earthquake-prone countries with wooden buildings, in addition to the main earthquake hazard of ground shaking. Regional-scale post-earthquake fire risk assessments are important for developing effective risk reduction strategies. Such risk assessments require the consideration of epistemic uncertainty, that is, uncertainty caused by lack of knowledge concerning the best models, in addition to aleatoric uncertainty. This study focused on epistemic uncertainty in post-earthquake fire ignition estimations, and incorporated it into risk assessments by using alternative empirical ignition models. The key objectives of this study were as follows: (1) correlating the probability of ignition per person to the ground motion intensity based on data for different past large earthquakes in Japan; (2) investigating the impact of using ignition models calibrated on different earthquake events in risk assessments through a realistic case study considering possible large earthquakes. A hierarchical Bayesian Poisson regression analysis revealed that the empirical relationship between the ignition probability and ground motion intensity greatly varies across six major large earthquakes in Japan from 1995 to 2022. Particularly, the effects of ignition prevention measures that have been widely implemented in households since the 1995 Kobe earthquake were inferred from much smaller ignition probabilities in approximately the last 10 years. The effects of this high epistemic uncertainty manifested as the large variability of the loss exceedance curve for a portfolio of buildings. These results indicate that the new ignition models can help to foster risk-informed decision-making under epistemic uncertainty.

The Role of Wooden Architecture in Sustainable Societies in Vietnam

Constructed with sustainable materials, wooden buildings are attracting attention for their potential contributions to maintaining and preserving the environment and reducing the environmental burden. Further, raw wood material is renewable and recyclable based on sustainable forest management and can absorb and store carbon dioxide during its growth and use. The potential of wooden architecture in Vietnam is discussed from the perspectives of culture, earthquake resistance, durability, fire protection, and energy conservation, and also its contribution to the local economy.

The Role of Wooden Architecture in Sustainable Societies in Vietnam

Constructed with sustainable materials, wooden buildings are attracting attention for their potential contributions to maintaining and preserving the environment and reducing the environmental burden. Further, raw wood material is renewable and recyclable based on sustainable forest management and can absorb and store carbon dioxide during its growth and use. The potential of wooden architecture in Vietnam is discussed from the perspectives of culture, earthquake resistance, durability, fire protection, and energy conservation, and also its contribution to the local economy.

Readjusting the climate change hyperfocus: how expanding the scope of impact categories will affect the evaluation of wood buildings

The sole focus on reducing the climate impact of dwellings by using wood is neglecting other impacts on nature. Therefore, this study clarifies the potential burden shift by considering ten more impact categories than greenhouse gas emissions. It assesses four wood buildings and one reference concrete building by using the method of life cycle assessment. What stands out is that wood dwellings perform better than the concrete building in most impact categories except for abiotic depletion potential and ozone layer depletion potential (ODP). The latter also experiences an impact increase when wood is used to decrease climate impact as global warming potential (GWP). The wood dwellings have a general inverse correlation between GWP ranking and ODP and some resource use indicators where plastics and cement-based materials influence the latter. Bio-based materials’ contribution to acidification and eutrophication is more considerable than to GWP. Upon the findings, increased inclusion of impact categories among researchers and practitioners must follow to expand the knowledge base. A foundation for future conscious decisions of using wood in dwellings and the challenging debate of reaching consent of which other impact categories should attain focus for being improved.

Material aspects of wooden towers for offshore wind turbines

Possible new innovative materials for Counter Rotating Axis Floating Tilted Turbines are studied and discussed. The 40 MW version of the Counter Rotating Axis Floating Tilted Turbine (CRAFTT) will reach as far as 80 m below sea surface and up to 400 m above. The CRAFTT is an integrated design for floating offshore wind with two turbines on the same tilted shaft where the lower turbine is mounted directly on a rotating mast integrated with floater. The upper turbine will reach altitudes of 400 m. The system is designed to be a direct drive system, eliminating need for gearbox, taking advantage of the double air-gap speed of generator. With the generator placed at lower end as ballast the incentive to reduce weight for wings, tower and blades increase. Furthermore, wood is an attractive option as it enables both low CO2 impact production and higher degree of reusability. However, fatigue properties from both mechanical and thermal cycling needs to be addressed in order to evaluate new structural materials in the context of floating wind turbines. Starting from scratch without any preconceived notions, one could consider timber as a potential option for the tower. In such a preliminary and qualitative deliberation, one can consider that the use of wood as the main load-carrying material in large structures has been proven during the last decade by the development of new high-rise wooden buildings, with even higher buildings with timber as the main structural component expected in the future, The tall wooden buildings have been made possible since wood has the advantage of having high specific mechanical properties, i.e. high strength and stiffness with respect to density in the grain direction, in addition to being renewable. Another advantage is that wood is less sensitive to fatigue than many metallic materials, since its hierarchical microstructure prevents the propagation dominant cracks when loaded in the longitudinal direction. Design against fatigue is crucial in wind turbine structures given the inevitable cyclic loading. As all materials, wood certainly has its drawbacks, the foremost being its sensitivity to moisture, which is of obvious concern in off-shore applications. Moisture has a softening effect, resulting in creep, and moisture may trigger chemical or microbial degradation. The development of barrier coatings of aluminium has shown to be very efficient in e.g. high-voltage cables and food packaging, making them impermeable to moisture and air. Such techniques should be applicable also in wood constructions. This presentation highlights the main points specific for wood as a construction material in the design of wood towers for wind turbines in offshore locations, which need to be addressed in design.

FaÇade system design process on the basis of energy simulation tools

The façade is not only the outer layer of a building that brings aesthetic beauty to the structure but also serves the function of regulating temperature, natural lighting, and ventilation for the building. Belonging to the group of passive design solutions aimed at achieving energy efficiency for the building, optimizing façade design has increasingly garnered attention and investment of time and resources from investors and architects alike. With the aid of building energy simulation tools based on heat exchange calculations and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modeling, the authors have developed a process to optimize façade systems based on parameters such as position, orientation, ventilation area, and materials. This calculation process will serve as a valuable tool for architects in implementing their design ideas, helping achieve optimal results in terms of aesthetics and energy savings for the building. The paper presents the calculation process and its application to a two-story wooden modular building at the Institute of Building Science and Technology.

Closing the gap to sufficiency-based absolute climate targets for wood buildings

This research investigated the distribution of the global climate planetary boundary (PB) on a national scale. Then it was distributed to a sector-specific carrying capacity by the principles of acquired rights (grandfathering) and sufficientarianism. Then, four wood dwellings were compared against these carrying capacities using the life cycle assessment methodology. The climate safe operating space for new dwellings is about three times larger when using the principle of sufficiency compared to acquired rights. The rationale for the sufficiency perspective is that it considers the fundamentals of a society leading to a fulfilling life. The concept disregards the current surplus elements in society, which gives more space for emissions for the remaining elements in a fulfilling society. The acquired rights reflect the current society as optimal but require systemic changes in the different sectors to reduce their total impacts to remain within climate PB while keeping the sector’s current share of impacts. However, building with wood cannot alone contribute to society staying within the climate target. The end of life contributes most to the impact due to biogenic carbon release, and energy consumption follows next. Reduction of the average yearly built area shows considerable potential to close the target gap. In addition, improving and implementing circularity, carbon capture, and material efficiency would reduce biogenic carbon’s end of life impacts. Combined with energy-positive buildings and low-carbon materials, this could be a viable mitigation pathway to explore further.

Analysis of the Application of Fire Protective Composition for Wooden Structures

In construction, coniferous wood is usually used as load-bearing and enclosing structures. Wood is characterized by the ability to ignite and spread combustion when heated in air. Wooden building structures pose a fire hazard, since with an initial impulse of external thermal energy, ignition is possible. In addition, when a fire occurs in buildings and structures where wood is located, a number of dangerous fire factors arise: flames, sparks, heat flow, toxic combustion products, extremely low oxygen concentrations, decreased visibility due to smoke. In this regard, it becomes relevant to treat wood with special compounds that increase resistance to fire. The authors examined the fire hazardous properties of building structures made of wood, analyzed the fire retardant treatment of wooden structures with a special composition; examined the fire hazardous properties of building structures made of wood, the mechanism of pyrolysis, and the effect of fire retardant treatment on the behavior of wood when exposed to fire. The use of fire retardant significantly affected the pyrolysis processes of the samples. The information obtained during the study made it possible to assess the degree of differences in the values of the average weight loss of samples treated with different fire retardants. Samples using a fire retardant composition have a shallower charring depth. Damage associated with thermal exposure is fundamentally different from untreated samples. Treated and impregnated samples exhibit rapid weight loss. This is due to the fact that in treated and impregnated samples, when exposed to high temperatures in the oven, the reactions of dehydration and cross-linking of cellulose molecules are accelerated.

Carbon handprint – a review of potential climate benefits of buildings

ABSTRACT As buildings account for 39% of greenhouse gas emissions, the building sector is essential for pursuing carbon neutrality. Carbon footprints of buildings are currently emerging in the legislation of European countries. However, the concept of carbon neutrality calls for both reducing emissions and increasing carbon sinks and storages. The concept of ‘carbon handprint’ describes potential climate benefits that are related to a product, service, or an organization. Although an increasing body of scientific and professional literature exist on the concept, there are no standards for guiding its quantification in the context of buildings. Furthermore, examples demonstrating the potential of building related carbon handprints are still scarce. In this article, we examine and evaluate different climate benefits that can be utilized in life-cycle assessment of buildings. We test them through a case study of a wooden apartment building. Our results indicate that methodologically most mature handprints include carbon storage in bio-based products, carbonation of concrete, surplus energy, as well as reuse, recycling, and energy recovery. In our study, the relative size of the calculated handprints varies considerably between 39% and 87% of the building’s footprint. However, uncertainties and methodological development needs should be addressed in the standardization work.

Pozitivni aspekti primjene masivnog drva u interijerima na dobrobit ljudi

The paper provides an overview of research conducted in the field of wood application in the interior environment and on how solid wood as a material affects human behavior and sense of wellbeing. The analyzed literature includes articles published in the period 1989-2021 in Pub-Med, Google Scholar, Scopus, and Web of Science (WoS) databases using keywords: wood; wellbeing; psychological and physiological responses; indoor environment. Thirty-one articles were processed. Results from the studies confirmed that people have a strong connection and positive behavioral reactions in relation to the use of solid wood in interiors. Wood visually and tactilely affects the mental state of users, and affects physical state, productivity, and stress. Selected studies were reviewed to better understand the impact of the solid wood application on user behavior, health, and wellbeing using objective and subjective test methods. All the findings can be a potential guide for greater future implementation of wood in the sustainable interior design of timber buildings by wood processors, manufacturers, architects, and interior designers, as well as a more vital branding of sustainable and healthy wooden products and buildings with the aim of increasing the wellbeing in interior environments with an emphasis on furnishing sustainable public facilities.

Fundamentals of Construction Materials and Types of Building Using WPM Method

Building materials are construction materials. Natural resources such as branches, wood, clay, pebbles, and sand can all be used to build. Many naturally occurring compounds and some more and some less artificial man-made items are in use. Building materials are called from a range of sites and quarried and mined as jio goods. Must find new resources because the demand to cling to what is now available is expanding along with the world's population. Concrete has a long and illustrious history, but adobe bricks, stone, and clay were the primary building materials used throughout history. These products are still in demand, and any more quarry for their specific extractive industries in the same area causes issues. this is a list of construction supplies. Buildings and structures produce several types of building materials that are employed in the construction sector. Construction is used for projects to specify materials and processes, and project managers' materials and goods are utilized in this category by architects and construction. Blockwork, typically wood building materials, and cold, rolled steel frame are all considered modern construction techniques as opposed to slow ones. There are several applications for various building materials; as a result, you should always check with the manufacturer to be sure a product is good for your needs. Around the world, almost 11,000 new structures are constructed each day. Buildings, sidewalks, and skyscrapers the first being undersea constructions, mines, and bridges for building products, numerous structures up to various construction are used. This page discusses the various types of construction materials used in construction. A hotel and residential complex in midrice the trust is now in motion. Supported by types and earth steel wallers around the excavation the pile also holds the steel sheet. The equipment enters, and the image travels down the earth's curve before leaving the spot. On the right, is a large backhoe from the previous structure there following the ancient mounds around digging continues but pressure-painted setting up the concrete pile legs what is happening, in the movie, better-completed piles are visible in the nearby center and the far corners. Piledrivers in large groups work. Strengthening of columns and concrete pile caps construction is underway on an excavation in the middle of the center. A well-liked technique for multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) and multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) is the weighted product model (WPM). The weighted sum model is comparable to this (WSM). The primary distinction is that multiplication is used as the primary mathematical operation rather than addition. The decision-making model by multiplication in linking an attribute rating includes the Weighted Product (WP) technique. When attributes are multiplied, weight for attributes acts as a positive rank, whereas attribute rating acts as a negative rank for the cost attribute. Materials, Construction equipment, Labor, Finance, Enabling Expenses, Admin Expenses, Surplus Building, Roads, Bridges, Dams, Power, Railway, Mineral Plant, Transmission the result it is seen that Dams is got the first rank where as is the building is having the lowest rank. Dams is ranked first and industrial Building is ranked lowest.

Solving Separation Distances from Flammable Surfaces of Exterior Walls by Central-European Standards

The paper deals with the topic of determining the density of heat flow from combustible surface treatments of exterior walls, such as combustible insulation systems, combustible cladding of facades and from all-wood constructions of exterior walls. Heat flow density is an important indicator in determining the fire resistance rating of exterior walls and in determining safe separation distances. The article describes the ways in which exterior walls can be classified in terms of fire resistance. One of these methods is a numerical calculation (of the surface amount of released heat and heat flow density), which will be applied to various types of combustible surfaces of the perimeter walls of wooden buildings. The results showed that the numerical calculation is a suitable method for determining the classification of fire resistance rating of exterior walls with combustible coating. The Czech legislation defines the criteria for this classification better.

Viking Age Windows

In the last 25 years a conspicuous amount of plane glass – windowpane fragments – has surfaced on archaeological sites from the Viking Age. These finds have not received scholarly attention as they are not recognised as a genuine prehistoric (i.e. pre-1050 Scandinavia) occurrence. This paper aims to investigate a select group of archaeological localities that all have a significant amount of glass objects and fragments, and which also serve as mainstays for continental influences, commercial trade, as well as ritual activities. It offers the study of the chemical composition of these windowpane fragments, their distribution, provenience, and discusses their potential use as windows in Viking Age Scandinavia. Based on the chemical composition of the analysed plane glass (via LA-ICP-MS) the paper argues, firstly, that the glass most likely should be dated to the 9th to 11th centuries; secondly, that there are two possible import paths of raw material with one recognized at the early emporia based on east Mediterranean types of glass, and another with a continental type of glass found at the aristocratic sites. Finally, the paper argues that the windowpanes very likely could have been used in contemporary glassed windows placed in wooden buildings at these sites.

Imbalanced Anomaly Detection Using Augmented Deeper FCDDs for Wooden Sleeper Deterioration Prognostics

Maintaining high standards for user safety during daily railway operations is crucial for railway managers. To aid in this endeavor, top or side-view cameras and GPS positioning systems have facilitated progress toward automating periodic inspections of defective features and assessing the deteriorating status of railway components. However, collecting data on deteriorated status can be time-consuming and requires repeated data acquisition because of the extreme temporal occurrence imbalance. In supervised learning, thousands of paired data sets containing defective raw images and annotated labels are required. Concretely, the one-class classification approach offers the advantage of requiring quite a few anomalous images to optimize parameters for training large normal images. The deeper fully-convolutional data descriptions (FCDDs) were applicable to several damage data sets of concrete/steel components in structures, and fallen tree, and wooden building collapse in disasters. However, it is not yet known to feasible to railway components. In this study, we devised a prognostic discriminator pipeline to automate one class classification using the augmented deeper FCDDs for defective railway components. We also performed sensitivity analysis of the mixture and erasing augmentations, and the deeper backbone rather than the shallow baseline of convolutional neural network (CNN) with 27 layers. Furthermore, we visualized defective railway features by using transposed Gaussian upsampling. We demonstrated our application to railway inspection using a video acquisition dataset that contains wooden sleeper deterioration. Finally, we examined the usability of our approach for prognostic monitoring and fu ture work on railway component inspection.

Cycles of change: enhancing collaboration and communication in Norwegian municipalities to strengthen heritage preparedness for extreme events

This article considers the development of a framework to collaboratively identify and address the most pressing needs for application of climate change research to the preservation of cultural heritage in Norway. Its focus is on historic wooden buildings, at increased risk from fire and flood due to climate change. Drawing from the field of translational research, the MICHON project identified the need for targeted, systematic knowledge networks in preparedness planning for cultural heritage environments. This was developed through a combination of desk-based research and extensive collaboration with Norwegian municipalities, fire brigades and local communities. The process has included evaluation of policy and practice in diverse case sites to frame a networking methodology that builds on Lean Construction and the backwards planning method. The interaction between researcher and practitioner has been at the forefront of the project and the iterative design has already shown transformative impacts to both practice and research.

Preparation and Characterization of Wood Composites for Wood Restoration

Given the widespread use of wood-based materials and that these materials are often damaged, an abundance of materials have been developed to repair and restore wood. Most of these materials treat the binder and filler as a single system; however, there is yet to be a system that has all the desired properties of an ideal wood-repair composite. Aiming for the goal of creating an ideal wood filler, this study proposed a wood-repair composite that combined epoxy resins, polyether amines, and poplar wood fibers. The materials were selected to mimic the hydrophobicity of lotus leaves and the strong adhesion of mussel proteins. The properties of the designed wood composites were characterized by various testing methods. The prepared fillers were then used to repair damaged poplar wood panels. The mechanical properties of the wood sample repaired with the optimal filler formulation reached 97% of those of the undamaged wood. In summary, the wood composites proposed in this study present a new means of repairing wooden relics, exposed outdoor wooden buildings, and household panels.

A Novel Approach to Discovering Hygrothermal Transfer Patterns in Wooden Building Exterior Walls

To maintain the life of building materials, it is critical to understand the hygrothermal transfer mechanisms (HTM) between the walls and the layers inside the walls. Due to the extreme instability of weather data, the actual data models of the HTM—the data being collected for actual buildings using modern sensor technologies—would appear to be a great difference from any theoretical models, in particular, for wood building materials. In this paper, we aim to consider a variety of data analysis tools for hygrothermal transfer features. A novel approach for peak and valley detection is proposed based on the discrete differentiation of the original data. Not to be limited to the measure of peak and valley delays for HTM, we propose a cross-correlation analysis to obtain the general delay between two daily time series, which seems to be representative of the delay in the daily time series. Furthermore, the seasonal pattern of the hygrothermal transfer combined with the correlation analysis reveals a reasonable relationship between the delays and the indoor and outdoor climates.

A trait-based approach to both forestry and timber building can synchronize forest harvest and resilience.

Along with forest managers, builders are key change agents of forest ecosystems' structure and composition through the specification and use of wood products. New forest management approaches are being advocated to increase the resilience and adaptability of forests to climate change and other natural disturbances. Such approaches call for a diversification of our forests based on species' functional traits that will dramatically change the harvested species composition, volume, and output of our forested landscapes. This calls for the wood-building industry to adapt its ways of operating. Accordingly, we expand the evaluation of the ecological resilience of forest ecosystems based on functional diversification to include a trait-based approach to building with wood. This trait-based plant-building framework can illustrate how forecasted forest changes in the coming decades may impact and guide decisions about wood-building practices, policies, and specifications. We apply this approach using a fragmented rural landscape in temperate southeastern Canada. We link seven functional groups based on the ecological traits of tree species in the region to a similar functional grouping of building traits to characterize the push and pull of managing forests and wood buildings together. We relied on a process-based forest landscape model to simulate long-term forest dynamics and timber harvesting to evaluate how various novel management approaches will interact with the changing global environment to affect the forest-building relationships. Our results suggest that adopting a whole system, plant-building approach to forests and wood buildings, is key to enhancing forest ecological and timber construction industry resilience.