›

36 TheStructuralEngineer Research
August 2012 Cross-laminated timber

N Figure 1 N Figure 2a N Figure 2b

Yacht with mast Perspective Cross-section through middle of building (A –
supported by wire stays of structure central core; B – columns; C – stays; D – beams)

30-level timber
Synopsis
This paper looks at the possibility of
using cross-laminated timber (CLT)
construction to support commercial

building concept
buildings to 30 levels. A prototype
building structure is proposed and
analysed using an elastic analysis
program. The main structural elements,
including a central tube core, columns

based on cross- and beams, are made of cross-laminated

timber. The CLT panels are arranged to
ensure structural efficiency with minimal
material wastage. The CLT central core

laminated timber is assisted by steel stays (like those

of a yacht), and reinforced concrete
beams which act like wine barrel hoops.
Consideration is given to the design of

construction simple but stiff joints. The structural

elements are examined for strength
and the building deflections are noted.
The paper concludes that the proposed
structural system with CLT elements is
John Chapman, likely to be suitable for buildings to 30
School of Architecture & Planning, The University of Auckland, New Zealand
levels.

TSE8_36-40.indd 36 25/07/2012 08:41

 www.thestructuralengineer.org

37

Introduction gravity loads only) are not considered in

A worldwide interest in multi-storey
timber buildings is expected due to the
environmental advantages of timber
construction when compared to concrete
and steel. Cross-laminated timber (CLT)
is a recent development that assembles
timber planks in alternate layers to form
large panels. CLT construction has been
used successfully for the nine-storey Murray
Grove Stadthaus building in Hackney, East
London, UK which is regarded as the world’s
tallest timber residential building. Waugh
et al.1 write: ‘In our paper, we will use our
Stadthaus scheme to demonstrate that
solid timber construction is a financially
viable, environmentally sustainable and
beautiful replacement for concrete and
steel in high-density housing. Constructed
entirely from cross-laminated timber
from the first floor upward... The nine-
storey building is the first of this height to
construct load bearing walls, floors and
cores entirely from timber.’
CLT is a panel product and, like plywood,
has timber layers that are glued together
with adjacent layers having their grain
at right angles to each other. The cross-
laminating ensures reliable strength and
stability. The layers in CLT are made up with
lumber approx. 40mm thick. CLT panels
range in thickness from 57mm to 500mm,
and measure up to 16m long and 3m wide.
For the prototype building in this paper,
CLT is proposed for the central core, the
floor beams and columns. Pairs of universal
columns form inclined stays. The columns
are located on lines radiating out from the
middle of the core giving the building an
organic feel. The structural system, with
appropriate wind forces applied for a city
location, is analysed by the ‘Multiframe
4D’ structural analysis program. The aim
for the structural system is to optimise the
arrangement of CLT panels for strength,
stiffness, and economy.
this paper. The vertical distance between
adjacent floors is taken to be 3.2m, resulting
in an overall building height of around
97m. The circular central core and vertical
columns will be boundary conditions for
the architecture. However, they result
in considerably more open spaces than
existing CLT multi-level buildings which rely
on multiple shear walls. The tubular space
inside the central core could be used for
vertical circulation, or perhaps as an
open atrium.
CLT panels are chosen from the KLH
Engineering Brochure2 and these are
summarised in Table 1. The 360 beams can
be made from 90, 3m wide panels that are
sawn along their length to make 0.75m N Figure 3
Plan of prototype 30 storey timber building structure
deep members. Timber wastage, at less (A – CLT central tube core; B – CLT columns; C – pairs of
200UC54 stays; D – beams; E – reinforced concrete hoop
than 5%, only occurs in the core panels due beam; F – line of outside walls)
to door openings, shear key cavities and
edge shaping.
Central CLT tube core
The proposed central CLT tube core has 12,
3m wide facets, is 96m tall, and has an outer
diameter of 11.5m. CLT is especially suited
to the close fitting facets of the central
core because it will remain stable. To aid
the predictability of structural performance
the door openings in the central core are
stacked on top of one another and occur at
CLT is a recent
every 3rd or 4th facet as shown in Figure 4.
Traditional wine barrels have horizontal
development that
metal hoops which hold the longitudinal
timber staves in place. For the 30-level
assembles timber
CLT concept structure, the steel hoops are
replaced by reinforced concrete beams that
planks in alternate
go around the CLT facets at each floor level.
These concrete beams, which are sized at
layers to form
1m deep by 450mm wide, also support the
inner ends of the floor beams and transfer
large panels
the beam loads to the central CLT core.
Table 1: Cross-laminated member summary

Proposed 30-level timber building Columns, Columns, Columns,

system Central
Member levels 1 levels 11 levels 21 Beams
core
To investigate the structural system concept - 10 - 20 - 30
based on CLT panel elements, a 30-level
prototype building was developed using an Number of panels 90 24 24 24 360
elastic analysis program. The main structural
element is a central timber tube made of
CLT that is assisted by steel stays like a Panel length, (m) 12.8 16 16 16 10
yacht mast as shown in Figures 1 and 2. At
each level, CLT floor beams radiate out from
Panel width, (m) 3 3 3 3 0.75
the centre of the building, as shown in Figure
3. These beams are supported at their outer
ends by vertical CLT columns and at their Panel thickness, (mm) 320 480 320 240 320
inner ends by the tube core. The building is
considered to be square in plan with 38m
Longitudinal timber
sides. The secondary beams and columns 240 400 240 160 240
thickness (mm)
around the building perimeter (which support

TSE8_36-40.indd 37 25/07/2012 08:41

 ›
38 TheStructuralEngineer Research
August 2012 Cross-laminated timber

To ensure that the panels of the 11.5m
diameter central tube act in unity as one
structural element, shear forces need to be
transferred between the vertical joints of
adjacent panels. The solution shown in Figs
4 and 5 describes reinforced concrete shear
keys between the facets. Dry aggregate
and reinforcing, that are both enclosed
in an open weave bag, are placed in the
shear key cavity. Boxing is then placed
and cementitious grout is pumped into the
key cavity. Pumped wet grout will ensure
complete filling of the shear joint cavities and
hence minimal joint slip. ‘Dry aggregate and
pumped grout’ technology is used in New
Zealand when replacing damaged reinforced
concrete beams or columns within an
existing building. As discussed later, the
reinforced concrete (RC) shear keys perform
two other roles. One is to transfer vertical
tension forces between the CLT panels, the
other is to transfer RC hoop beam loads to
the CLT tube core.
the compression in the core due to gravity
loads, and thus minimise the tension
stresses in the core. As a consequence, the
timber joints contain less tension forces
which are considerably more complicated
to transfer than compression forces.
Inclined steel stays
There are 12 pairs of 200mm x 200mm
universal column ‘stays’, with each universal
column weighing 52kg/m length. They are
attached to the foundations at the outer
edges of the columns, and pinned to the
central tube core at the 20th level. The
‘stays’ act in both tension and compression
which is different to those of a yacht which
only act in tension. The stays will have
lateral support at each floor level to prevent
compression buckling. The stays’ main
purpose is to limit building sway.
Table 2: Member properties and critical combined actions
Structural analysis
An elastic analysis of the structure was
completed. The columns and central
CLT core were considered fixed to the
foundations. To compensate for reduced
central core stiffness due to door openings
through the core, the core modulus of
elasticity was reduced for the elastic
analysis from 12 000MPa to 10 400MPa.
The interaction between the hoop beams
and the central CLT core could not be
accurately modelled in the structural analysis
program, and therefore the floor beams are
conservatively assumed to be pinned to the
hoop beams.
Loads on prototype building
Eurocode 15 is used for determining the
building loads on the prototype building
because in Europe, and more particularly

CLT beams and columns

Central Columns, Columns, Columns,
The floors span between the radial floor Beams
Member tube Stays levels levels levels
(span moment)
beams and are considered to be of timber- core 1-10 11-20 21-30
concrete composite construction. The
concrete floor toppings, which are typically
around 75mm thick and reinforced with Modulus of
10,400 200,000 12,000 12,000 12,000 12,000
steel mesh, provide useful diaphragm action Elasticity, E (MPa)
in the floor planes. Timber-concrete floor
arrangements have been developed in Characteristic
Europe and more recently in Australia3 bending stress, f’b 23 250 23 23 23 23
and New Zealand. (MPa)
The floor beams are 1m deep and are
CLT-concrete composite as shown in Characteristic
Figure 6. The CLT elements are 750mm compression 24 250 24 24 24 24
deep and the concrete floor topping stress, f’c (MPa)
thickness is increased above them to
250mm. The shear connection between the Characteristic
CLT elements and the RC topping is via a tension stress, f’t 16.5 250 16.5 16.5 16.5 16.5
steel ‘C’ section that is glued and screwed (MPa)
to the top of the CLT. Gerber et al.4 show
that when these steel elements are glued
to the timber then the combined sections M* (kN.m) 101,492 0 830 451 274 628
exhibit planar behaviour with negligible
‘slip’ between the timber and concrete
layers. The inner ends of the beams are
considered pinned to the RC hoop beams, φ Mn (kN.m) 477,673 256 12,420 7,452 4,968 1117
and the outer ends are fixed to the CLT
columns. At the beam-column joints, the
steel reinforcing in the thickened concrete
slab is designed to yield at the maximum Nc* (kN) 25,430 1,538 14,143 9,311 4,584 135
design moments to encourage energy
absorption, and also to prevent excessive
bending moments being transferred into
the columns. φ Nnc (kN) 182,078 2,988 25,920 15,552 10,368 9,123
There are 12, 3m deep columns extending
the full height of the building. For economy,
they reduce in overall thickness from Factor of Safety,
480mm to 240mm with building height. 1 / ((M* / φ Mn) + 2.84 1.95 1.63 1.52 2.01 1.73
The columns are placed at a relatively large (Nc* / φ Nnc))
distance from the central core to maximise

TSE8_36-40.indd 38 25/07/2012 08:41

 www.thestructuralengineer.org

39

the UK, CLT has become a popular choice W Figure 4

Part elevation of
of structural material in new projects. In the central core - shown
near future it is likely that the significant in one plane (E –
reinforced concrete
developments in CLT commercial building will hoop beam; H –
reinforced concrete
occur in Europe. The building dead load, G, shear connector; M
– horizontal butt joints
is taken as 2.5kN/m2 of floor area. Research between CLT panel; N
at the University of Auckland has shown that – door opening) Note:
Arrows show how
this floor mass is needed to achieve sufficient reinforced concrete
shear connectors
acoustic insulation between adjacent floor transfer tension
from CLT panel ‘X’ to
levels. A live load, Q, of 3.0 kN/m2 of floor adjacent panels ‘Y’
area is used, which is required by Eurocode and ‘Z’

1 for typical commercial office use. The wind

forces, W, on the building are deduced from
Eurocode 1 and are based on a fundamental
value of basic wind of 23m/s and a site
altitude of 100m which is suitable for most
large UK cities. The combined load cases
for strength used in the elastic analysis are
1.35G+1.5Q and 1.35G + 1.5W. W is the load
used for assessing horizontal building sway.
Critical member actions
Table 2 presents the critical member
actions for the combined load cases, the
maximum allowable member actions based
on a strength reduction factor (φ) of 0.9, and
factors of safety for the critical members.
Members in compression were more
critical than those in tension. The factors
of safety are satisfactory. However, the
columns at 1.63 and 1.52 are at a limit and
it would be unwise to place more load on
them. The columns for levels 1-10 use the
largest available CLT section and this is an
indication that the building could not be built
taller than 30 levels.
There will be a degree of fixity between
the RC hoop beams and the central CLT
core. If full fixity is assumed, the proposed
1m deep x 450mm wide RC section can
adequately support the internal actions
(M* = 90KN.m, T* = 20KN.m).
Building sway
The top of the building moves 80mm
horizontally under the wind forces, or
0.00083 times the roof level height of 96m.
The maximum inter-storey sway is 3.2mm,
which is the inter-storey height x 0.001.
This inter-storey deflection is 50% of the
suggested maximum allowable value in AS/
NZS1170:20026. However, there will be some
additional inter-storey sway due to joint
slippage that has not been accounted for
in the elastic analysis. The timber member
joints, other than those to the foundations,
are all in direct compression which forms
stiffer joints than those that rely on multiple
screw or nail fixings. The stays reduce sway
of the top of the building by 35% and lower
tube core stresses by 26%. For regions that
have relatively low wind forces and are not
prone to earthquake events, the inclined
steel stays may not be necessary.
The circular core and radiating beam
arrangement produces optimum stiffness.
If the CLT panels are re-arranged to form
a square central core and a rectilinear grid
of beams and columns, the sway at the top
of the building increases by 79% to 143mm.
Member stresses also increase. Another
major advantage of the circular member
arrangement is that all members are working
in frame action to support horizontal load
and if there is ductility more strength is
available. For example, in critical wind
events the windward and lee frames will
initially reach maximum strength but the
adjacent frames are not at their full capacity
and are able to support additional horizontal
load if it occurs.
Joints
Based on the maximum shear force in the
CLT central core of 6588kN, the reinforced
concrete shear key solution (Fig. 5) for
transferring the rolling shear between the
core facets, has a factor of safety of 2.4.
To transfer stay forces via the level 20
RC hoop beam to the central tube core,
additional RC key joints (similar to those
E Figure 5
Horizontal section through
reinforced concrete shear
key, section A–A
S Figure 6
Beam cross-section
(C – 200UC54 stay;
D – beam; F – timber-
concrete composite
floor with 75mm
approx. thick RC slab;
G – concrete slab
thickening, 250mm
deep x 600mm wide,
with reinforcing steel;
J – mild steel channel
glued and screwed to
top of CLT beam)
shown in Fig. 5) are required at level 20 in
the middle of each facet.
For levels one to eight, tension exists in
the windward facets of the central core for
the 1.35G+1.5W load case. Above level two,
there are butt joints between the ends of
the CLT panels, which are staggered (Fig.
4). At these butt joints the RC shear keys
will transfer the tension forces through the
adjacent panels into the panels directly
below (as illustrated by the arrows in Fig.
4). Fortunately these tension forces are
transferred through shear connectors which
are near the Y-Y axis, where the demand for
transferring shear forces between the CLT
panels is minimal. The maximum tension to
be transferred between the ends of panels
is 1958kN. The capacity of the shear keys
to transfer inter-panel tension is 6912kN so
there is a factor of safety of around 3.5. To

TSE8_36-40.indd 39 25/07/2012 08:42


40 TheStructuralEngineer
August 2012
achieve fixity at the base of the tube core,
steel straps, which are anchored into the
foundations, will be screw-fixed to the
CLT facets.
For the columns, the bending moments
are small compared to the axial compression
forces and the resulting stresses through
the column joints are only compressive
which allows simple butt joints between
column members. To prevent excessive
stress perpendicular to the timber grain in
the beam to column joints, reinforced wood
will be required (Figure 7). Reinforced wood
has a steel plate over long screws and the
screws transfer compression load which
reduces perpendicular to grain stress on the
timber. Like the base of the tube core, the
columns are fixed to the foundations using
steel straps and screws.
Topics for further study
This paper is a first look at a structural
system for commercial buildings that
relies on CLT panels. The system aims to
optimise the arrangement of CLT panels
for strength, stiffness, and economy. Many
questions will no doubt arise and will be the
subject of future investigation.
Understanding of the structural system
would benefit from a closer look at joint
slip. Stress concentrations will occur in the
core at shear key locations and around
door openings. While these stresses are
likely to be acceptable, they will increase
deflections both vertical and horizontal.
Also, the effects of timber creep due to
compression in the columns and central
core should be assessed. Study of the
structure’s response to earthquake events
would be necessary if a building was
located in prone regions. Shock absorbers
or energy dissipaters could be included
within the stays to absorb energy in
earthquake events.
For economy, the structural elements
are full size sheets of CLT with minimal
trimming. Pre-fabrication of the structural
elements will ensure quick erection, and
minimised construction times. An accurate
costing would be a step in assessing the
viability of this system.
It is intended that fire design for the
prototype building is the subject of a
subsequent paper. CLT panels are relatively
resistant to fire with charring rates of
0.67mm/min for top layers and 0.76mm/min
for all other layers2. Without any additional
protection, the loss of strength of the
320mm thick CLT panels is 19% for a 30min
fire, 38% for a 60min fire, and 57% for
a 90min fire. Additional fire resistance
could be included using sprinklers,
added layers of timber, plasterboard, and
intumescent paints.
TSE8_36-40.indd 40
›
Research
Cross-laminated timber
W Figure 7
Elevation of beam
end connections
(A – CLT central
tube core; B – CLT
column; D – beam;
E – reinforced
concrete hoop
beams; G –
concrete slab
thickening,
250mm deep x
600mm wide, with
reinforcing steel;
K – reinforced
wood; L –
reinforcing bars
turned around
front column
edge for end
anchorage)
Conclusions jointing have factors of safety of at least
The possibility of using cross-laminated 1.5. Also, the analysis shows that suitable
timber construction to support commercial inter-storey deflections are achieved during
buildings to 30 levels was investigated. To major wind events. A worldwide interest in
carry out this investigation, a prototype multi-storey timber buildings is expected
building with 30 levels was designed with due to the environmental advantages of
the main structural element being a strong timber construction when compared to
central tube core. Floor beams and columns, concrete and steel. This was an an initial
that assist the tube core in frame action, study and further research for developing
are located on rays from the centre of the a more comprehensive understanding of
core. This arrangement is significantly stiffer the proposed structural system is outlined.
and stronger than members located on a The conclusion to the investigation is that
rectilinear grid. Except for steel stays and CLT construction is likely to be suitable for
RC ‘hoop’ beams, all the main structural buildings to 30 levels.
elements are made of cross-laminated
timber. The proposed prototype building Acknowledgments
has considerably more open spaces than The author thanks Tanja Buysers for her
existing CLT multi-level buildings which rely proofreading and other useful comments.
on multiple shear walls. The CLT panels Thanks are also due to Tom Reynolds and
are arranged with timber wastage less Prof. Richard Harris from the University
than 5%, and the inter-panel jointing is of Bath who are looking into the dynamic/
designed to be simple and have minimal vibration response for a version of the
slip. An elastic analysis indicates that the proposed CLT building system. Their
main structural members and associated support is very much appreciated.
References
E1 Waugh, A, Wells, M, Lindegar, M: (2010) 'Tall timber buildings: Application of solid timber
constructions in multi-storey buildings', Proc. Inter. Conv. Soc. Wood Sci. and Technol.
and UN Econ. October 11 – 14, Geneva, Switzerland: Commission for Europe – Timber
Committee
E2 KLH UK Engineering Brochure, (2008) http://www.klhuk.com/media/16583/klh%20
engineering%20en%202008.pdf (Accessed May 2012)
E3 Crews, K, John, S, Gerber, C, Buchanan, A, Smith, T, and Pampanin, S: (2009)
Preliminary design procedures for TCC floors and virtual timber buildings, Sydney,
Australia: Sydney University of Technology
E4 Gerber, G, Crews, K: (2011) ‘Development of a design procedure for timber concrete
composite floors in Australia and New Zealand’, NZ Timber Des. Soc. J., 19/2, pp. 6-115
E5 BSI (2005), BS EN 1991-1-4. Eurocode 1, Part 1-4, General actions, Wind actions,
BSI: London
E6 Standards Australia International Ltd/Standards New Zealand (2002) AS
NZS1170:2002, Structural design actions.
25/07/2012 08:42