Introduction

The Nepali building construction industry is predominantly occupied by reinforced cement concrete
(RCC) technology for the last few decades. Although RCC has its benefits, it is still a very labour intensive,
time consuming and expensive construction method. Even the construction of a fully finished single
family house could take a full part of a year or so and scrap a good sum of money off the owner. As the
economy of the country grows, the demand for affordable housing will increase tremendously. And so
to keep up with this demand, it is important to develop a building construction technology that is cheap,
time saving and more importantly sustainable. The construction technologies available in the market
today do not meet these criteria, as mentioned RCC is expensive, time consuming and labor intensive
and steel construction, which may save some construction time, is still not sustainable and can possible
be expensive.

One alternative solution is to use timber engineering and an innovative timber construction product
called mass timber product. Wood is the only green building material because of its carbon sequestering
property, which means the buildings constructed with wood are naturally carbon neutral. Moreover,
sustainable farming of trees can help lower the price of timber and make timber buildings much cheaper
than RC or steel buildings. Moreover, wooden buildings are not only cheaper but thy also help create
beautiful, close-to-nature spaces which improves productivity, health and wellness.

Engineered Wood and Mass Timber Products

Engineered wood are wooden products that are engineered for structural application. They are
manufactured by gluing together wood strands, veneers, lumbers or other wood fiber with adhesive to
form a larger composite structural unit. They are designed and manufactured to maximize the natural
strength and stiffness characteristics of wood by optimally orienting the wood veneers, strands or
laminations and by combining wood with durable adhesives. Plywood, oriented strand boards (OSB),
glued laminated timber (Glulam), cross laminated timber (CLT), nailed laminated timber (NLT) etc. are
some of the examples of engineered wood products.

Glulam, CLT and NLT are also referred to as mass timber products, for their size compared to light
framed timber buildings. Among them glulam is one of the oldest mass timber product which has been
around for over 100 years.

Glued Laminated Timber (Glulam)

Glulam are engineered wood products manufactured by gluing

together thin laminates of timber using structural adhesives.
Smaller boards of wood usually one to two inches thick are end-
jointed, with the grains running longitudinally along the length of
the board, to produce longer laminates. These laminates are then
glued together in layers to produce glulam member of desired
dimension. This way glulam member of practically any size and
length can be manufactured. Glulam members are structural more Figure 1 Glulam beam
strong with predictable strength and are dimensionally stable than sawn timber. This is because the
natural defects like knots, which affect the strength of sawn timber, are eliminated during the
production of glulam.

Glulam building

Figure 2 3D Model of a glulam building structure

 Foundation
Usual reinforced concrete foundation could be used for glulam timber building, with
individual isolated footings for individual columns. The footings could be tied up with
reinforced concrete tie beams as in reinforced concrete buildings.

Figure 3 Concrete isolated footing for glulam columns, with concrete tie beams

 Super structure frame

The super structure will be moment resisting frame structure made up of glulam column
and beam. The beam and column of any size could be manufactured according to the
design requirement.

Figure 4 Glulam timber building frame structure

 Connections
The connections between the structural elements will be bolted connection as in steel
structure. The bolts and connecting metal plates can be concealed using wooden plugs
and blocks.
o Foundation-column

Figure 5 Examples of glulam column to foundation connection

o Column-beam

Figure 6 Glulam column to beam connection

 o Beam-beam

Figure 7 Different glulam beam to beam connection options

 Walls, floors and roof

Light weight timber framing could be used for the walls, floors and roofs of the glulam
building, with mineral insulations placed between the timber studs and joists to increase
thermal and acoustic performance. The advantage of light weight timber framing is that
electrical wires and sanitary conduits can be placed inside the framing keeping it hidden.

Figure 8 Lightweight timber frame wall and floor

  Facades
Any kind of facade system from brick, stone cladding to plaster with paint finishing can
be a used, depending upon the client’s desire, on the exterior of the timber building.

Figure 9 Birck facade on lightweight timber frame wall

Safety concern for Glulam building

 Earthquake
Wood has a better proportion of strength to dead load than other construction materials.
The light weight of wood-frame buildings causes smaller inertia forces and results in a
comparatively smaller design loads. This means, during earthquake, less lateral force is
acting on timber building than that on concrete or steel buildings. Apart from that, timber
can dissipate more energy than steel or concrete, meaning it can absorb more energy than
steel or concrete for a given earthquake. Thus these features make timber building safer
during earthquake. Moreover, the metal connections between the structural members
provide ductility to the timber framed building, which improves its load bearing
performance as well as its seismic performance.
  Fire
Wood being a combustible material, safety of wooden building against fire is naturally a
major concern. However, mass timber products like glulams perform differently in fire than
light weight timber frames. When wood burns, it creates char on the surface which is
burning. This char layer has very special thermo-mechanical properties. It has very low
thermal conductivity, meaning it is highly insulating. Because of which the char layer
prevents the heat from penetrating inside the wood surface, thus protecting the unburned
wood at the inner part of the wood. It is because of this phenomenon that it is hard to burn
a large log of wood compared to smaller, thinner pieces of wood. And glulam, being a mass
timber product, has large dimensions similar to large logs. This makes glulam structures
hard to be burned down because of the protection provided by the char layer. Besides, the
rate of charring is mostly consistent and measurable for most wood species and can be used
to design safer glulam timber structure against fire. Moreover, synthesis transparent
intumescent paints, which produce thick char layer on exposure to high heat, can be applied
on the surface of the timber structure to provide added protection against fire for set period
of time.

 Termites and decay

Another major concern for timber structures are termite attack and decaying of the wood
itself. Wood is a natural material, which means it can decompose and is vulnerable to
attacks from pests. However, with proper construction and installation of building
components, the durability of wood in timber building can be greatly increased. Likewise,
different anti termite and water resistant chemical are available which can be applied
directly on the wood surface to protect it against termites and pest attack and decaying and
rotting. In fact, a properly designed and constructed timber building can have durability and
life of over 100 years.

Timber sourcing and costing

Costing of Glulam house