Your search resulted in 411 documents. Displaying 25 entries per page.
Comparative Durability of Timber Bridges in the USA
2017 - IRG/WP 17-20615
As engineers begin to utilize life-cycle-cost design approaches for timber bridges, there is a necessity for more reliable data about their durability and expected service life. This paper summarizes a comprehensive effort to assess the current condition of more than one hundred timber highway bridge superstructures throughout the United States. This national study was jointly administered by the ...
J P Wacker, B K Brashaw
Prediction of service life – does aesthetic matter?
2017 - IRG/WP 17-20618
Building structures should be designed in order to satisfy requirements regarding safety, serviceability, durability and aesthetics, assuring proper structure performance along the entire service life. For that reason it is essential to understand overall deterioration mechanism at levels of element, component, façade and entire building. This work focuses specifically on the façade aesthetical ...
A Sandak, J Sandak
Service Life Forecasting and Planning – Why, and Concepts to do it
2017 - IRG/WP 17-20625
The importance of the building and construction sector in society cannot be overestimated. It is globally the major industry sector, a main contributor to gross domestic products, a dominant employer, and the main consumer of material resources and energy. The environmental impact of constructing, running and demolishing the built environment is huge. The products of construction are normally long...
C Sjöström
In-service performance of treated plywood bridge decks in Australia
2017 - IRG/WP 17-40794
Engineered wood products have a long history of use in bridge construction in Australia. The first bridges incorporating chemically protected engineered wood components were installed in the 1850’s and some survive to this day. Preservative treated plywood bridge deck panels have been employed since the 1980’s as a replacement for the more traditional hardwood plank decks. This paper report...
M A Powell
Performance of Norway spruce bridge in North-West Spain after 12 years exposure
2017 - IRG/WP 17-40796
Across Europe is very common to find bridges build in sawn and glue-laminated wood. Most of these bridges used softwood wood species such as: fir, spruce, larch and pine.
In Spain wooden bridges, became more and more popular since nineties, when sawn and glue-laminated wood were utilized for building exterior wooden structures in overall Spain.
This material, sawn and glue-laminated wood, are ma...
D Lorenzo, J Fernández-Golfín, M Touza, M Guaita, A Lozano, J Benito
Impact of sapwood portions on the durability of adjacent heartwood of Pinus sylvestris, Pseudotsuga menziesii and Quercus robur. Part 1: Laboratory studies
2018 - IRG/WP 18-10922
Sapwood is generally considered as non-durable and assigned to durability class DC 5 according to European standards independent from the wood species. It is commonly agreed that sapwood decays faster than adjacent heartwood, but it is controversially discussed whether sapwood serves as feeder material and thus accelerates onset and progress of decay in more durable heartwood or decays independent...
C Brischke, P Homann, A Gellerich
In-service performance of wood claddings and windows – a Norwegian survey
2018 - IRG/WP 18-20632
The overall aim of the study was to strengthen the empirical data on decay frequency and in-service performance of claddings and windows in Norway. Data from a survey of claddings and windows from 38 Norwegian houses is presented. The main findings for wooden claddings: 1) predominance of decay was detected in east facing claddings, while the largest decayed areas were located on south facing clad...
L Ross Gobakken, G Alfredsen
Simulation and visualization of aesthetic performance of bio-based building skin
2018 - IRG/WP 18-20633
Performance of 120 selected façade materials provided by over 30 industrial and academic partners is under evaluation. The experimental data, acquired during BIO4ever project duration are used for development of the numerical models simulating the material degradation in a function of time and exposure. The weather data calculated according to the ASHRAE 2013 database allows numerical simulation ...
J Sandak, A Sandak, P Grossi, M Petrillo
Transfer of research results on the performance of wood and wood-based composites in outdoor applications into praxis
2018 - IRG/WP 18-20634
Forest-based industries have the potential to become an engine for a sustainable and competitive bioeconomy in Danube region. To reach this goal FORESDA projects was proposed. Main aim of respective project is transforming the traditional forest-based areas into innovative, modern and sustainable manufacturing areas; develop innovation-friendly ecosystems aiming to significantly improving and reco...
B Lesar, J Gričar, D Kržišnik, M Humar
The impact of coatings on the service life of wood decking
2018 - IRG/WP 18-20635
The durability of wood decks depends on the nature of the environment in which they are exposed to, the dimensions and configuration of the components, the resistance of the wood to degrading factors in that environment, and the maintenance performed on the deck. The present work seeks to better understand the performance of selected wood decking systems when maintained and unmaintained. This expe...
R Stirling, D Wong
Enhancing service life performance of oak decking and cladding using organosilicon treatments
2018 - IRG/WP 18-40838
The Life+ project SILEX, in full “Improving sustainability of construction materials using innovative Silicon based treatment” started in April 2013 and was finalized mid 2017. The aim of this project was to demonstrate that a new class of compounds can be used for wood treatment for an extended service life combined with enhanced new testing methodology. Ultimately, it was the intention to de...
J Van Acker, J Van den Bulcke, J-P Lecomte
Long service life or cascading? The environmental impact of maintenance of wood-based materials for building envelope and their recycling options
2018 - IRG/WP 18-50336
A major restraint in choosing bio-based materials (i.e. wood-based) for external use, is the lack of confidence that architects, designers and customers have toward these materials. In particular, the limit state of bio-based materials, which defines the frequency of maintenance operations, might be reached earlier for wood than for other materials (i.e. concrete). On the other hand, resource and ...
M Petrillo, J Sandak, P Grossi, A Kutnar, A
Performance of wood decking after 5 years of exposure: verification of the combined effect of wetting ability and durability
2019 - IRG/WP 19-20647
Wood is one of the most important construction materials and its use in building applications has further expanded in recent decades. In order to enable even more extensive and reliable use of wood, factors affecting wood’s service life need to be understood. More recently, a new concept to characterize the durability of wood-based materials and to predict the service lives of wood was proposed,...
M Humar, D Krzisnik, B Lesar, C Brischke
Quantifying the effect of microclimatic parameters on the moisture-induced decay risk of wooden structures
2019 - IRG/WP 19-20649
Wood exposed outdoors is prone to fungal degradation. Besides its material-inherent resistance, numerous factors are impacting on its service life with both, climate and design having a major effect. In addition, topography, shading, wind barriers, and other local parameters have an effect on the microclimatic conditions at site and therefore need to be quantified for service life prediction of wo...
L Emmerich, C Brischke
Visual assessment of longitudinal wheel timbers and assessing the feasibility of extending wheel timber service life in the UK railway network
2019 - IRG/WP 19-20651
Timber has been a versatile building material for centuries and during the start of the Railway Age in the nineteenth century it was in considerable demand for use in the railway network, particularly bridge building. Timber is still in service and widely used throughout the UK railway network. The resilience and favourable strength to weight ratio and its relative ease of fabrication make it an...
J R Williams
Performance based specification of wood – Introducing project CLICKdesign
2019 - IRG/WP 19-20661
This paper introduces the new ForestValue research project CLICKdesign – delivering fingertip knowledge to enable service life performance specification of wood. This European consortium is working on the primary innovation to move from the complex, fragmented and general to the easy-to-use, consolidated and specific by provision of an accessible digital tool for specifiers. Competing materials ...
E Suttie, C Brischke, E Frühwald Hansson, S Fortino, J Sandak, M Kutnik, G Alfredsen, C Lucas, R Stirling
Service life planning of wooden structures: Mathematical prediction models versus professional experience
2019 - IRG/WP 19-20663
During the last 15 years, enormous efforts have been made in developing models for predicting the service life of wooden structures and components. Currently, a framework of how exposure, dimension, design details and the material-intrinsic and the ability to take up and release water can be linked to model the moisture risk in wood products is in principle available.
The aim of this study was to...
C Brischke, J Niklewski, M Humar, G Alfredsen
Durability and climate change - implications for wood building structures
2019 - IRG/WP 19-50361
Sustainable building practices are rooted in the need for reliable information on the long-term performance of building materials; specifically, the expected service-life of building materials, components, and assemblies. This need is ever more evident given the anticipated effects of climate change on the built environment and the many governmental initiatives world-wide focused on ensuring that ...
M Lacasse
Modelling decay rates of timber exposed above ground on four different continents
2020 - IRG/WP 20-20670
Durability performance data from an international decking trial were analysed to explore relationships with climate variables, particularly those related to temperature and rainfall. Matched decking samples of slash pine (Pinus elliottii) sapwood and heartwood, spotted gum (Corymbia citriodora), Norway spruce (Picea abies) and Scots pine sapwood (Pinus sylvestris) were exposed to the weather above...
L P Francis, J J Morrell, C Brischke, P B Van Niekerk, J Norton
Carbon footprint of a cross laminated timber building – Torvbraten school case study
2021 - IRG/WP 21-50366
Torvbråten school is a public school in Asker, Norway, that has reached many sustainability goals. The school was the second in Norway to have Nordic Swan Ecolabel and has a 60 % reduction in carbon footprint compared to the reference benchmark. The building is made of cross laminated timber (CLT) and extensive wood use in general. From a wood protection viewpoint, will this sustainability sustai...
L G F Tellnes, J K Naess, M R Hanssen, P-O Flate
Significance of the thermal design and the sorption isotherm shape in hygroscopic wood moisture dynamics and service life
2022 - IRG/WP 22-20682
Moisture dynamics are considered important for predicting the service performance of wood in exterior applications. Above a critical moisture content, water acts a softener on the structural polymer matrix of the wood cell wall, enabling the necessary diffusion of molecular species involved in the fungal degradation mechanism of wood. Water may enter solid wood in either liquid form or in vapor fo...
W Willems
Using satellite-retrieved soil moisture data to model the decay risk of in-ground timber
2022 - IRG/WP 22-20689
Satellite-derived soil moisture data from the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) was extracted for a 9 x 9 km point grid over Europe. The data was then used as input to a dose-response wood decay model based on terrestrial microcosm (TMC) tests. The resulting hazard map plotted dose as an indicator of in-ground wood decay based on differences in annual temperature and soil moisture characteristic...
P B van Niekerk, M Schönauer, B N Marais, C Brischke
Premature adhesion failure of exterior wood coatings – The influence of substrate temperature at coating application and moisture accumulation during storage
2022 - IRG/WP 22-40937
The present study aimed at extending the knowledge about premature coating failures of industrially finished wood cladding. Two potential factors were studied: the influence of substrate temperature at coating application and moisture accumulation during storage on the adhesion of waterborne coating systems. In the first experiment, 4 batches of wood specimens were submitted to 4 different tempera...
U Hundhausen
Simulations of microclimates for wood-decaying fungi in the built environment using environmental analysis
2023 - IRG/WP 23-20703
Simulations of fungal decay risk were run on two similar building geometries exposed to typical annual climate conditions of two different geographical locations, Brunswick (Germany) and Cairns (Australia). The simulations were conducted to capture the effect of wind-driven rain and solar irradiation exposure over nodes of the common building geometry. The moisture content and temperature variatio...
P B van Niekerk, J Niklewski, S H Hosseini, B N Marais, I Frimannslund, T Kringlebotn Thiis, C Brischke
Performance of a noise barrier with different wood materials – results from a service trial after 25 years of exposure
2023 - IRG/WP 23-30776
In connection with the construction of the railway connection between Stockholm Arlanda airport and Stockholm city, an 11 km long noise barrier made of untreated European larch was built along the railway line. This provided an opportunity to implement a full-scale study comparing different untreated wood species and preservative treatments. Thus, in March 1996 ten test sections including untreate...
J Jermer, M Westin