INFRASTRUCTUREWood Is Making a Comeback in Construction
In the past 150 years, as cities and skyscrapers have boomed, wood has been eclipsed by newer materials such as concrete and steel. Experts say that we shouldn’t accept the dominance of the steel-and-concrete jungle just yet. Thanks to the work of engineers, our oldest building material is experiencing a revival — one that can even withstand earthquakes.
We’ve been using wood to build things for a very long time. According to the recently discovered remains of a half-a-million-year-old wooden structure in Africa, we’ve been using it before we were even fully human. From those early beginnings, to the stave churches of Scandinavia, to Lincoln’s log cabin, wood as a construction material has been favored for its abundance, its workability, and its beauty.
Yet in the past 150 years, as cities and skyscrapers have boomed, wood has been eclipsed by newer materials such as concrete and steel. These materials are able to support more weight, allowing for bigger buildings, and aren’t as susceptible to fire, earthquake, and moisture damage. At the same time however, they cost more to produce, are not renewable, and extoll a heavy carbon footprint; steel and concrete production accounts for over 10% of global emissions.
But talk to Civil Engineering professor Chris Pantelides, and he’ll tell you that we shouldn’t accept the dominance of the steel-and-concrete jungle just yet. Thanks to the work of engineers like Pantelides, our oldest building material is experiencing a revival — one that can even withstand earthquakes.
Sitting in his office in the Meldrum Building he holds up a block of composite wood, about 12 inches long and 10 inches wide, and smiles.
“What you’re looking at here is the future,” he says.
The deceptively simple piece of lumber is an example of “mass timber” technology, a category of “engineered wood product” set to revolutionize the construction industry— and that Pantelides has spent the last seven years studying and developing.
On the desk before him, amongst other pieces of wood and long metal dowels, sits his latest research paper, titled “Design and Cyclic Experiments of a Mass Timber Frame with a Timber Buckling Restrained Brace.”
The paper, authored by Pantelides, his grad student Emily Williamson, and industry researchers Hans-Erik Blomgren of Timberland, and Douglas Rammer of Forest Products Laboratory, was recently published in the Journal of Structural Engineering. It explores the best ways to build a Buckling Restrained Brace — a type of building support that protects against earthquake damage — with mass timber.
