by Web Editor | Feb 17, 2016 | News
A new kind of engineered lumber is being tested at the University of Maine. This new “plywood on steroids” could compete with other construction materials like concrete and steel, and this new industry may help add value back into Maine’s forests.
“It would be a new market, it would be a new factory, sort of like making furniture, except it’s really big pieces,” said Steve Shaler, director of the School of Forest Resources at UMaine.
The new market would be for cross laminated timber, an engineered plywood created and tested at the University of Maine. CLT is made with different types of wood from Maine’s forests. It’s then pressed into a strong construction material, ready to use at construction sites.
“They come out as large panels, solid panels with windows and door openings pre-cut, maybe utility locations pre-cut, and they’re swung into place and connected together and they go up very very quickly with very little cutting on site, very little waste on site,” said Bill Davids, professor and chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.
“This is for taller structures, four stories, 10, there are buildings now that are made out of wood that are 10 stories tall,” said Shaler. The blocks of spruce, pine and fir were stress tested and broken under 10,000 pounds of force, which is stronger than normal lumber, but lighter than other building materials like steel and concrete.
From WCSH 6 News: https://www.wcsh6.com/news/plywood-on-steroids-changes-lumber-industry/41656511
by Web Editor | Sep 23, 2015 | News
U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, in partnership with the Softwood Lumber Board and the Binational Softwood Lumber Council, recently announced the winners of the U.S. Tall Wood Building Prize Competition. The two winning development teams were granted a combined $3 million in funding to support the development of tall wood demonstration projects in New York and Portland, Oregon.
At a press conference hosted in New York this morning, Secretary Vilsack congratulated the competition winners. “The U.S. wood products industry is vitally important as it employs more than 547,000 people in manufacturing and forestry, with another 2.4 million jobs supported by U.S. private forest owners,” said Vilsack. “By embracing the benefits of wood as a sustainable building material, these demonstration projects have the ability to help change the face of our communities, mitigate climate change and support jobs in rural America. I look forward to seeing how these two buildings help lead the way in furthering the industry.”
Next-generation lumber and mass timber products are becoming the latest innovation in building. Innovative new technologies and building systems have enabled longer wood spans, taller walls, and higher buildings, and continue to expand the possibilities for wood use in construction. Mass timber wood products are flexible, strong, and fire resistant, and can be used as a safe and sustainable alternative to concrete, masonry, and steel. Using wood helps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by storing carbon and simultaneously offsetting emissions from conventional building materials.
Wood can also help struggling rural forest communities. During the Recession, the drop in new construction and decline in home remodeling had a deep impact on wood manufacturing. However, if next-generation wood products can penetrate just five to fifteen percent of the non-residential North American market, it would mean roughly 0.8 – 2.4 billion board feet of lumber consumed annually. To put that in real-world context, roughly 35 jobs are created for each million board feet of wood processed.
The two winning proposals – Framework and 475 West 18th – were selected by a panel of distinguished jurors in the architecture and engineering fields who are familiar with innovative wood building systems. While each took a unique approach, both projects met the Competition’s criteria to showcase the safe application, practicality and sustainability of a minimum 80-foot structure that uses mass timber, composite wood technologies and innovative building techniques.
From the USDA: https://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/usda/usdahome?contentidonly=true&contentid=2015/09/0259.xml
by Web Editor | Sep 2, 2015 | News
We ask: If the 19th century modern building material technology was associated with steel and the 20th century with concrete, could the 21st be the century of “MCT,” mass construction timber? Wood, one of the world’s oldest (and greenest) building materials, was the de facto construction material in American cities for over two centuries, falling out of favor when non-combustible materials capable of building high and wide emerged.
Today, highly engineered timber, sized to compete with these structural systems, is making a comeback in Europe, especially in Germany and in Austria, where the world’s first 8-story “ply-scraper” was recently completed. Stateside, the Boston Society of Architects recently featured Urban Timber, an exhibit showcasing innovative developments in wood technology and construction, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture is sponsoring a $2M ideas competition for the design of tall wood buildings. Given all of this hoopla, one could assume that we are on the verge of a global timber revolution, yet the U.S. is lagging far behind our European neighbors. In fact, to date, neither the U.S. nor Canadian building codes explicitly recognize mass timber structural systems.
Deeply committed to sustainability, we made the choice to dive feet first into connecting with the past to build the future by employing MCT for the primary structural system of our University of Massachusetts Amherst Design Building. Designed with Equilibrium Consultants, one of the world’s foremost timber engineers, the building will house the university’s Departments of Architecture, Landscape Architecture, Regional Planning, and Building Construction Technology, and is now under construction. Permitted through a variance application using the “alternative” method provisions of the building code, our 87,000-square-foot building furthers the university’s educational mission by incorporating examples of the inherent departments’ design practices. Targeting LEED Gold, it will be among the first MCT structures in the region when completed in 2017.
Laminated technologies, first developed in Europe in the 1980s, are allowing us to fabricate fairly massive timber components for the Design Building using small diameter trees sustainably harvested from managed forests. Our selected timber, black spruce, was sourced from Canada’s Boreal forest region, an area that constitutes the world’s largest land based biome. It is constituted to stand up to fire and maintain its structural integrity.
From Metropolis Magazine: https://www.metropolismag.com/Point-of-View/August-2015/Timbers-Transformation-An-Old-Building-Material-is-Reborn/
by Web Editor | Aug 7, 2015 | News
The 2015 Spring NBMDA Quarterly Sales Trends Report, a robust benchmarking and forecasting tool, surveyed both distributor and manufacturer members of the North American Building Materials Distribution Association (NBMDA) to deliver invaluable data and insights. The report provides NBMDA members with information on near term and regional demand trends, sales forecasts and business management.
Overall, NBMDA distributor and manufacturer respondents are off to strong start in 2015. March was the strongest month of 1Q for respondents, and the strong trends continued through April. In addition, more than 70 percent of both distributors and manufacturers plan to add headcount in 2015.
Distributors saw demand improve through Q1 with March up 10 percent compares to four percent growth in January and February. The report indicated that distributors are forecasting six percent plus growth across flooring, board & panels, hardware & storage, and specialty building materials in 2015.
Manufacturer-specific insights from the report showed that manufacturer respondents also saw momentum improve through Q1, continuing into early Q2. Hardware & Storage is projected to be the strongest category in 2015.
“This robust benchmarking data has been an exceptional tool for our members,” said NBMDA Executive Vice President Kevin Gammonley. “The report allows NBMDA to support members by providing insights on trends their peers are experiencing.”
From Woodworking Network: https://www.woodworkingnetwork.com/wood/pricing-supply/building-materials-group-forecasts-6-growth-flooring-panels?ss=news,news,woodworking_industry_news,news,almanac_market_data,news
by Web Editor | Jun 24, 2015 | Update
The best attendance since 2007 turned out for the Composite Panel Assn. annual spring meeting held May 31-June 2 at the Hyatt Regency Coconut Point Resort at Bonita Springs, Fla.
The North America MDF, particleboard and hardboard industries are striving to bring annual shipments closer to capacity, the latter of which was 8.654MMSF as of the beginning of this year, representing 35 particleboard mills, 22 MDF plants, and eight hardboard and engineered wood siding plants. However, it was noted that three new MDF plants (Masisa, Duraplay de Parral and Pro MDF) will go live in Mexico in the next 18 months
Economist Dr. Bill Conerly led off the keynote session addressing The Economic Outlook for Building Materials: New Opportunities and Risks in the Evolving Business Cycle. It won’t be a boom, Conerly said of the economy in the next two years, but it will get better, pointing to U.S. real GDP growth of about 3% in 2016 from its current level of less than 2.5%.
Conerly said housing starts should increase to 1.2 million in 2016, before higher interest rates stall the growth, at which time a surge in remodeling business will surface.
He said higher interest rates stem from the Federal Reserve Board’s concern over inflation, and rates could increase 1.5% per year, possibly beginning this September depending on the strength of the economic data at that time. If the data shows a weakening, however, the Fed will wait. He said the Fed must worry about raising rates too soon, possibly sending the economy into a mild recession, or waiting too long to raise rates, which could cause a more severe recession in 2018-2019.
Conerly said a recent Wall Street Journal survey indicated that the risk of recession is at 12%.
CPA continues to address woody biomass chain of supply and the dynamics of the new generation of wood energy pellet and biomass power plants. Biomass Carbon Neutrality was the subject of a panel discussion moderated by Kelly Shotbolt, president of Arauco North America. CPA especially has an issue with subsidies that encourage the direct burning of woody feedstock. And while the burning results in released carbon, the use of wood products as a building material is storing carbon. The composite panel industry has been very aggressive in challenging biomass proposals and policy that tend to distort the traditional raw material supply chain..
Shotbolt noted that “Circumstances are getting more intense as global governments find ways to reduce the greenhouse footprint. We’re not naive to the fact that wood will be part of the green energy solution. We’re aware of the benefits. We’re a long-standing industry. Our products sequester carbon. As governments intervene we will advocate the expansion of biomass supply.”
The panel included Jim Bowyer of Dovetail Partners; Dave Tenny, president/CEO of National Alliance of Forest Owners; Pete Madden, president/CEO of Drax Biomass; and Laszlo Dory, chairman European Panel Federation.
Madden noted that the Drax power station in North Yorkshire England provides about 7-8% of UK electricity with six turbines, each generating more than 600 MW. He said the company has answered UK directives and incentive for renewable energy by convering two of those turbines from coal to biomass, and a third one is in process, which combined would enable Drax to deliver CO2 reductions of 12 million tonnes per year.
He reviewed the ongoing commissionings of new, 450,000 ton per year wood pellet plants in Gloster, Miss. and Morehouse Parish, La., along with an industrial wood pellet port facility at Baton Rouge, all of which represent a $350 million investment.
Madden said the two pellet plants will each require 1 million tons of fiber per year, 80% of which will be forest residuals (first thinnings) and 20% harvest residuals (slash). Each plant will receive 150 inbounds trucks per day delivering 3,900 tons of raw feedstock. The Mississippi plant will move 50 outbound trucks per day to the port, delivering 1,250 tons. The Louisiana plant will move an 80 car unit train (Union Pacific rail) per week 235 miles delivering 7,200 tons.
Why build the plants in the U.S. South? Madden asked. He pointed to the obvious abundance of fiber and also emphasized that Drax targeted areas where there has been forest products operation closures. He noted that closed pulp/paper and OSB facilities in the Southern U.S. represents more than 28 million green tons of reduced demand for roundwood and chips, while operating and announced (and likely to happen) wood pellet facility demand will be 26 million green tons.
Madden also pointed to the Drax commitment to sustainability, including forest operations auditing as well as performance standards with regard to carbon stock, life cycle greenhouse gas savings and biodiversity protection.
Madden said the size of the wood pellet market on a global scale has been overstated. “There’s not going to be hundreds of pellet mills in the South,” he said. He noted, according to forecasts, that EU demand for wood pellets may double by the end of the decade toward 25 million metric tons but then will most likely plateau.
