From: Panel World Editors
Officials with Oregon State University are investigating a construction incident when a CLT panel failed in mid March at a campus building project. A 4×20 ft. panel, part of the sub flooring between the building’s second and third floors, gave way after delaminating on one end. No construction personnel were in the area and no one was injured. The panel was replaced, other sections of CLT sub flooring were shored up, and work was halted on other CLT sections.
Steve Clark, OSU vice president of marketing and university relations, said the university is bringing in an outside engineering firm to determine cause of the failure and whether any other CLT portions of construction were at risk of failure, and CLT work will resume once any issues are addressed. Ironically, the new Peavy Hall building is home to OSU’s renowned College of Forestry, and the building is designed to showcase Oregon’s forest industry and the relatively new (in North America) mass timber construction movement. However, Clark says project managers “have the utmost confidence in CLT” and plan to finish the project as designed using CLT. The project’s CLT panels are being supplied by D.R. Johnson Lumber of Riddle, Ore., which was the first U.S. producer to gain CLT certification in 2016.