Timber Research
There are several research themes being actively persued and several areas of funding available for research projects. These are listed and explained below.
Projects |
Funding |
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Multi-storey timber buildings, 2 to 20+ storeys
Objective: To develop high quality multi-storey timber buildings which are safe, durable, easy to building and cost-effective for a wide variety of uses.
Team leader: Andy Buchanan
Student opportunities: Scholarships are available
in many of these areas.
Building components:
- Heavy timber beams, columns, walls
- Prefabricated off site
- Main structure is glulam or LVL
- Post-tensioned buildings for seismic resistance (Pres-Lam)
- Removable partitions and cladding
- Timber-concrete composite floors
Performance requirements:
- Wide open spaces: maximum flexibility
- Residential, educational and commercial
- Safe in fire, earthquakes, extreme weather
- Excellent acoustics
- Durable for hundreds of years
- Low operational energy
- All the sustainability benefits of wood
Construction:
- Easy to build, rapid construction
Seismic design
Video 1
Objective: To develop new forms of Pre-Lam earthquake-resistant multi-storey timber buildings based on the latest international developments in prestressed building design.
Team leader: Stefano Pampanin
Affiliated staff: Bruce Deam, Alessandro Palermo
Postgraduate students: Tobias Smith, Mike Newcombe, Denis Pino, Chris Watson
Video 2Movie to play here
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Video 3Movie to play here
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Sub-projects:
- Pres-Lam prestressed moment-resisting timber frames
- Pres-Lam solid timber walls, single or coupled
- Long term creep and deflections
- Ease of construction
Composite floors
Objective: To develop a top-performance large-span floor system suitable for multi-storey timber buildings.
Team
leader: Keith Crews (University of Technology, Sydney)
Affiliated staff: Warwick Banks (CHH), Bruce Deam, Massimo Fragiacomo (University of Sassari)
Postgraduate students: Nor Hayati Ghafar, Manoochehr Adalany
Sub-projects:
- Short term strength and stiffness of timber-concrete composite floors
- Vibration and dynamic performance
- Long term deflections of timber-concrete composite floors
- Ease of construction
- Holes for services in LVL beams
Fire safety
Objective: To ensure that new multi-storey timber buildings have equivalent fire safety to buildings of other materials.
Team leader: Andy Buchanan
Affiliated staff: Mike Spearpoint, Peter Moss, Tony Abu, David Carradine
Postgraduate students: James O'Neill, Philip Spellman
Sub-projects:
- Fire safety of timber lining and cladding materials
- Fire resistance of prestressed timber frames and walls
- Fire resistance of timber-concrete composite floors
- Fire code requirements in target markets
Sustainability
Objectives: To ensure that the new multi-storey timber buildings optimise all the sustainability benefits of wood, including low energy, low CO2 emissions and low life cycle costs.
Team leader: Stephen John
Affiliated staff: Alan Tucker (Mech Eng), Larry Bellamy (Ensys)
Postgraduate students: Nicolas Perez
Sub-projects:
- Energy requirements for heating and cooling of timber buildings
- Embodied energy in multi-storey timber buildings
- LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) of multi-storey timber buildings
- Green Star rating of multi-storey timber buildings
- CO2 benefits of timber buildings, including energy from wood waste
Research funding
MAF Funding
Excellence in Wood Design
Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, through the Forest
Industry Development Agenda (FIDA)
- This project is an agreement to collaborate in the establishment and maintenance of Professorships in Timber Design at the University of Canterbury and the University of Auckland. The main activities of the Professors are to manage the growth of a vigorous program of teaching and research related to Bachelor's, Master's and PhD degree programmes in Civil Engineering.
- The overall objective is to promote greater utilisation of wood in non-residential construction, initially in New Zealand then in export markets.
FIDA funding is for five years, 2006 to 2011.
Sustainability Project
Maximising the use of wood in sustainable buildings. Time and cost of construction
Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry
Project 1: completed June 2009
Project 2: completed August 2011
The Goals of the research
- To design comparable commercial buildings in timber, concrete and steel
- To carry out whole-life energy and CO2 analysis and modeling and LCA assessment
- To compare time and cost of construction and fit-out of commercial and large-scale residential buildings in New Zealand
- To show how timber buildings can be designed for very low operational energy use.
EXPAN
The Structural Timber Innovation Company Ltd (STIC) has been established to create a step change in New Zealand’s timber construction. It answers the question, “Why aren’t we building large span and multi-storey timber buildings to capitalise on the growing world-wide demand for sustainable buildings?”. New timber buildings are marketed as EXPAN.
EXPAN will:
- Investigate and develop novel engineered structural timber solutions for large span multi-storey buildings with adaptable open-plan interiors, and for very large span roof systems for single storey timber buildings;
- Develop a modular system concept for large prefabricated timber buildings which will overcome a key barrier to adoption of timber in non-residential construction.
The industry investors are:
- Carter Holt Harvey Woodproducts
- Nelson Pine Industries
- Wesbeam Pty Ltd.
- Building Research Association of New Zealand (BRANZ)
- Pine Manufacturers’ Association
- Forest and Wood Products Australia
- University of Canterbury
- University of Auckland
The industry investment is matched by:
- Foundation for Research Science and Technology (FRST)