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Quake-resistant wooden towers

Last Updated 03 March 2016, 18:39 IST

Researchers from the University of Alabama, US, led by Dr Thang Dao, Alabama University assistant professor of civil construction and environmental engineering, are probing on how to build taller wood-framed buildings in earthquake-prone areas to facilitate denser urban layouts while keeping people safe.

Test structures will be shaken in a giant quake lab to see how they perform.
They will combine two existing methods of timber construction in search of a new system that could lead to seismically safe timber towers reaching 12 storeys.

This would be an improvement on current methods that top out at seven storeys.
Sponsored by the National Science Foundation, this project is a sign of increasing interest in tall timber structures in North America.

Thang and his team will use the Large-scale Structures Lab on the Alabama University campus to mimic earthquakes on partially built structures and run computer simulations showing how the buildings would perform.

For the first time, researchers will combine the traditional light wood frame system with the emerging method of cross-laminated timber (CLT), an engineered wood panel usually consisting of layers of wood glued at intersecting angles.

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(Published 03 March 2016, 16:21 IST)

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