by Web Editor | Dec 5, 2018 | News
Thanks to innovative construction materials like cross-laminated timber (CLT) and laminated veneer lumber (LVL), wooden buildings are no longer mere houses made of sticks.
Attracted by the aesthetic and environmental benefits of timber, structural engineers have overseen a lumber comeback, from Landlease’s International House development in Sydney’s Barangaroo district to Brisbane’s newly completed 25 King, which is the world’s tallest commercial timber building.
But with ambitious projects in Tokyo, Chicago, and London eyeing far greater heights for timber as a building material, engineers and the public need to be assured wood can match up with concrete and steel when it comes to safety and stability.
That’s why Griffith University’s Associate Professor Benoit Gilbert has been putting timber to the test, using high-tech machinery to better understand how timber behaves in a variety of situations.
Gilbert’s current tests focus on progressive collapse, a term that describes the severe failure of a structure due to something going wrong in one part of it. That could be a gas explosion, a fire or if a car were to collide with the building.
Read more on this from Create at https://www.createdigital.org.au/strength-safety-tests-timber/.
by Web Editor | Feb 20, 2017 | News
The long wait for Australian-made cross laminated timber (CLT) is nearly over. Xlam Australia will open its first CLT manufacturing plant in Wodonga and be producing panels for construction by the close of 2017.
The company shared its plans to build a factory in the Albury Wodonga region with Architecture & Design last year, but only now do we know that it is actually going to happen. Fairfax is reporting that the plant has the backing of local, state and federal government and will be complete by April.
The facility will produce 60,000m3 of CLT each year and at capacity production will produce enough to build a project the size of Forte Melbourne – Australia’s largest timber apartment building – each week. It will be produced from local pine, increasing demand for the plantation industry and shortening delivery time and distance.
Currently, CLT is being purchased overseas from companies like Stora Enso, Meyer Timber and Novatop. Australia’s Lendlease has opened a prefabrication plant in Sydney that manufactures CLT framework but it doesn’t create the actual CLT.
Xlam has a number of Australian projects currently underway, including a massive CLT house designed by Fitzpatrick + Partners director James Fitzpatrick.
From Architecture & Design: https://www.architectureanddesign.com.au/news/australian-made-clt-from-local-plantation-forests
