With an increasing demand for a more sustainable alternative for high-rise construction, new research from UBC Okanagan, in collaboration with Western University and FPInnovations, points to timber as a sustainable and effective way to make tall, high-density, and renewable buildings.
With an increasing demand for a more sustainable alternative for high-rise construction, new research from UBC Okanagan, in collaboration with Western University and FPInnovations, points to timber as a sustainable and effective way to make tall, high-density, and renewable buildings.
“Many people have trouble imagining a timber high-rise of up to 40 storeys when we’re so used to seeing concrete and steel being the norm in today’s construction,” explains Matiyas Bezabeh, a doctoral candidate at the UBCO School of Engineering. “But we’re starting to demonstrate that the proverbial wolf can’t knock over the pig’s wooden building when they’re built using modern techniques.”
Bezabeh and his supervisors, Professors Solomon Tesfamariam from UBC Okanagan and Girma Bitsuamlak from Western University, conducted extensive wind testing on tall mass-timber buildings of varying height between 10 and 40-storeys at Western University’s Boundary Layer Wind Tunnel Laboratory.
“We found that the studied buildings up to 20-storeys, using today’s building codes, can withstand high-wind events,” says Bezabeh. “However, in the cases we studied, once we get up to 30 and 40 storeys, aerodynamic and structural improvements would be needed to address excessive wind-induced motion—something that would impact the comfort of those inside.
Read more at University of British Columbia Okanagan Campus
Image: UBCO Engineering Professor Solomon Tesfamariam (centre) examines wood used in mass-timber buildings. (Credit: UBC Okanagan)
