February 2011

Issue No. 15

Australian Timber Design Standard Changes

Background
The Building Code of Australia, BCA, is updated
every year. The BCA-2011 will be in force on 1st
May 2011, and will reference a new timber design
Standard AS1720.1 2010. The current 1997 timber
design Standard will be withdrawn. There are two
major changes in this new Standard :

Change #1
All characteristic strengths for all sawn timber have
been altered a little, generally downwards. Shear
strength has been significantly reduced, but this
seldom governs design. This change affects MGPgraded and F-graded timber. Other design factors
have also been adjusted, and these compensate to
some degree.
At the same time, the timber has to be graded
to suit either the current Standard or the new
one. Fabricators must only use timber graded
to the current rules with the current timber
design. Similarly, only use timber graded to
the new rules with the new timber design.
Do not mix and match.
The A3P advises that during the transition period leading up to May 2011, their members
will dual grade to meet the highest
requirements of both systems. Timber graded
this way may be used with either the old or
new timber design Standards, so this action
overcomes the stock management issue that
would otherwise arise.
Nevertheless fabricators should plan to use
up all stock that is graded to the current grading rules by May 2011, if possible.

The design differences between visually graded and

machined graded timber is also gone, for example,
the distinction between F5VGS and F5MGS is no
longer needed, and both simply become F5.

Change #2
Currently all components in a house are regarded as
being in Category 1 for timber design purposes. The
new Timber Design Standard now requires that if
failure of a component would affect at least 25 sq.m,
it will be treated as being in Category 2 instead. Any
component moving across to Category 2, eg most
girders, truncated girders and beams will then have
to be much stronger than before. The lower grade
timbers such as MGP10 and MGP12 will effectively
require a higher factor of safety, and will have to
be designed to be 20-25% stronger than with
current designs. MGP15, F17 or higher, and LVLs
are only penalised 5-10% and design differences for
these will be minimal.
In some circumstances closely spaced regular
members can have a more complex failure mechanism, and Pryda has worked hard on this issue to
ensure minimal changes. But even so, large span
trusses at 1200crs are likely to require more
conservative design than in the past.
Note: In addition to the above changes to timber designs, the new standard also gives a 13% increase
in capacity for M12 and M16 bolted connections in
timber. Accordingly, capacities of all bolted truss
boots would increase by the same proportion.

Effect on roof truss designs

The change in characteristic strengths and design
factors has only a small net effect on designs, so the
end result does not change by more than a few
percent, up or down.
The change in design category for roof trusses
impacts on most girders and truncated girders, if
lower grades are used, but less so for higher grades
and LVL. Timber costs for truss members affected
this way can increase by more than 20% for this
reason alone. It also affects other heavily loaded
components such as longer lintels and ridge beams.
Note that the stiffness of timber has not changed
for any grade. This has the important effect that
any component governed by deflection under the
current design Standard will not change under the
new Standard, unless the strength becomes more
critical. However strength is usually more important
than deflection in truss designs using lower grade
timber, so designers are likely to notice a greater
demand on higher strength timber for heavily loaded
components.

Action taken by Pryda

Pryda has put a switch into the Design Data dialogue
in Pryda Build i (V3.0.2+) which allows either timber
design Standard to be used. Pryda Build allows a
job to be designed using the 1997
Standard then redesigned using the 2010 Standard
and comparing cost differences.
This version will need to be installed to all Australian
Pryda fabricators by 1st May 2011.

Actions for Pryda fabricators

Fabricators should plan ahead for the main issues :
All timber designs (software and span
tables) that are not designed to the AS1720.12010 Standard will become non-compliant on
1st May 2011, and therefore will become obsolete and unacceptable to approval authorities.

When do you use the old Standard and when

do you use the new one ? The answer is it
depends. Most approval authorities will not
require substantial design work carried out before 1st May 2011 to be re-designed to the new
Standard, even if submitted after 1st May 2011. If
this was universally true, then all designers could
use the current Standard up to 30th April 2011.
If prices to customers have been fixed for a period
that spans across 1st May 2011, then fabricators
should understand any changes to design costs
and take appropriate action beforehand.
The timber marking is unchanged, so MGP10 is the
same mark used for both the current and new
structural properties. You may need to track which
timber was graded to the old system, which was
graded to the new system, and which is dual
graded. The latter is the most likely case, as most,
if not all, producers are already dual grading. All
may have the same grading marking. If you have
any concerns about timber suitability you should
contact your supplier.

Recommendations
Prydas advice is to use the current Standard for as
long as possible, as jobs with heavily loaded
components eg girders, beams and posts may
become more expensive when the new Standard is
used.
Up to 30th April 2011, fabricators can submit jobs
for approval using AS1720.1-1997 (current timber
design Standard). After this date, designers should
only use AS1720.1-2010 (new timber design
Standard).