PREVIEW PAGES

Designing
timber
structures
An introduction
Designing timber
structures: an
introduction
Contents Introduction
Chapter 1 introduction to timber
00
00
1.1 Timber and the tree 00
1.2 Timber as a building material 00
1.3 Sawn timber production process 00
1.4 Sustainability 00
1.4.1 Why should we build with timber? 00
1.4.2 Are we reducing the size of forests by using trees? 00
1.4.3 Timber certification 00
1.4.5 Carbon sequestration 00
1.5 Strength 00
1.5.1 Timber species 00
1.5.2 Timber grain 00
1.5.3 Moisture movement 00
1.5.4 Strength reducing characteristics 00
1.6 Grading 00
1.6.1 Visual grading 00
1.6.2 Mechanical grading 00
1.6.3 Timber engineering material properties 00
1.7 Load duration 00
1.8 Engineered timber products 00
1.9 Durability 00
1.9.1 Prevention 00
1.9.2 Species selection 00
1.9.3 Protection 00
1.9.4 Corrosion 00
1.10 Building codes 00
1.11 Summary 00
1.12 S
 even commonly used tree species in the UK and their
structural uses 00
Chapter 2 Simple timber construction 00
2.1 Case study: Feilden Fowles Studio 00
2.2 Safety factors and limit state design 00
2.3 Calculating the load acting on the joist 00
2.3.1 Permanent action 00
2.3.2 Variable action 00
2.4 Joist analysis 00
2.4.1 Calculating bending moments and shear forces 00
2.4.2 Calculating deflection 00
2.5 Load duration and moisture content 00
2.5.1 Load duration 00
2.5.2 Moisture content 00
2.6 Design 00
2.6.1 Calculating design strength 00
2.6.2 Bending 00
2.6.3 Shear 00
2.6.4 Bearing 00
2.6.5 Deflection 00
2.7 Summary 00
2.8 Worked example: Timber joist floor for a house 00
Chapter 3 Timber stud walls 00
3.1 What are timber stud walls and how are they used? 00
3.2 Case study: Staunton-on-Wye Endowed Primary School 00
3.3 Calculating vertical loads on a wall 00
3.3.1 Loads from floors 00

4 | Contents
 3.3.2 Loads from walls 00
3.3.3 Loads from ceilings 00
3.3.4 Loads from roofs 00
3.3.5 Permanent load 00
3.3.6 Variable load 00
3.3.7 Combining permanent and variable loads 00
3.4 Calculating horizontal wall loads 00
3.4.1 Understanding the timber frame stability system 00
3.4.2 Designing the timber frame stability system 00
3.5 Combining horizontal and vertical loads 00
3.6 Design of stud walls 00
3.6.1 Designing timber stud walls for axial load 00
3.6.2 Designing timber stud walls for combined axial and bending loads00
3.6.3 Designing timber stud walls for in-plane lateral loads 00
3.7 Summary 00
3.8 Worked example: Timber stud wall for a house 00
Chapter 4 Glulam frames 00
4.1 What is glulam and how is it made? 00
4.1.1 Typical glulam sizes 00
4.1.2 Glulam properties 00
4.1.3 Hardwood glulam 00
4.2 Case study: Hereford College of Arts 00
4.3 Glulam frame analysis 00
4.3.1 Calculating column loads (load trace) 00
4.3.2 Stability bracing 00
4.4 Glulam design 00
4.4.1 Designing flexural members 00
4.4.2 Designing columns 00
4.4.3 Designing glulam frame connections 00
4.5 Worked example: Glulam frame for office building 00
Chapter 5 Cross laminated timber 00
5.1 Introduction to cross laminated timber 00
5.1.1 A note on drawing CLT 00
5.2 Case study: Springfield Community Campus 00
5.3 What is a CLT building made from? 00
5.3.1 Material properties of CLT 00
5.3.2 Typical panel thicknesses 00
5.4 Design for out of plane bending 00
5.4.1 Analysis of one-way spanning slabs 00
5.4.2 Analysis of two-way spanning slabs 00
5.4.3 Designing CLT in bending 00
5.4.4 Designing CLT in shear 00
5.4.5 Designing CLT in deflection 00
5.4.6 Designing CLT in vibration 00
5.5 Design for axial load 00
5.5.1 Axial load on walls 00
5.5.2 Axial capacity of walls 00
5.5.3 Combining bending and axial 00
5.5.4 Designing CLT in bearing 00
5.6 Other considerations 00
5.6.1 Stability 00
5.6.2 Connection details 00
5.7 Summary 00
5.8 Worked example: CLT frame for school building 00

Contents | 5
 Chapter 6 Additional timber design considerations 00
6.1 Fire with Angus Law, University of Edinburgh 00
6.2 Acoustics 00
6.3 Good detailing 00
6.3.1 Construction 00
6.3.2 Robustness 00
6.3.3 Durability 00
6.3.4 Aesthetics 00
6.3.5 Fire 00
6.4 Looking after timber: best practice for site 00
6.5 Existing buildings with Margaret Cooke, Director,
Integral Engineering Design 00
6.5.1 Capacity of existing timbers 00
6.5.2 Degradation of timbers 00
6.5.3 Investigation of existing buildings 00
6.5.4 Simple strategies for strengthening 00
Chapter 7 Further information 00
7.1 General information 00
7.2 Joists, stud walls and platform frame construction 00
7.3 Glulam frames 00
7.4 CLT 00
Glossary 00

ISBN 978-1-909594-84-5 (paperback) 978-1-909594-85-2 (e-book)

All rights reserved. © 2020 Warringtonfire Testing and Certification Limited.

The pages contained in this preview are excerpted and uncorrected proofs
for the forthcoming book Designing timber structures: an introduction.

Cover photograph: © Martine Hamilton Knight

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6 | Contents
 EXTRACT FROM CHAPTER 1 – UNCORRECTED PROOFS

Figures 1.21 to 1.23 assume that the grain is all perfectly straight. As soon
as we add in the twist and bend of the tree as it grows over many years, we
can get bow, spring and twist as well as cup (Figure 1.24). If you ever chop
wood with an axe you can sometimes feel the locked in stresses from this
shrinkage, the timber literally popping apart at the slightest tap of the axe –
just from the drying of the timber.

2m
Key term
BOW Amount of bow

bow: a warp along the

length of the face of the
wood.
2m
SPRING Amount of cup cup: a warp across the
width of the face in which
the edges are higher or lower
than the center of the wood.

spring: a warp along the

stiff axis of the wood.
TWIST
twist: a distortion in which
the two ends do not lie on
Amount the same plane.
of twist 2m

Board width
CUP
Figure 1.24
Bow, spring, twist and cup of
Amount of cup timber

We can also define how much bow, spring and twist our timber experiences
by placing a 2m long straight edge against it and measuring the deviation.
For longer timbers we keep the 2m straight edge and look for the largest
value along its length by sliding the straight edge along its length. For cup,
rather than using a 2m straight edge, we take the board width (as board
widths are always substantially less than 2m).

These naturally-occurring distortions of the timber mean that the timber is

not as perfectly straight as we might imagine. There are of course solutions.
We can try and cut pieces of timber from the trunk in such a way as to
minimise the effects, but this limits the number and size of sections we can
cut from a tree. We can also dry the timber both before cutting sections and
afterwards, where we can then plane off any distortion although this will
reduce the size of the section. Or we accept it and allow for it in the design.

Chapter 1 Introduction to timber | 7

 EXTRACT FROM CHAPTER 1 – UNCORRECTED PROOFS

Check The shrinkage of the timber can also lead to checks and splits.

• Checks are cracks along the grain of timber that do not go through
the timber and are usually due to rapid or faulty seasoning, espe-
cially in large section members.
• Splits are separations of fibre in a piece of timber from face to face
(i.e. through the timber). They typically occur in connections where
the connectors prevent the timber shrinking across the width and so
it cracks. They can be avoided by minimising the amount of drying
shrinkage that takes place once all connectors have been installed.

Bolts
Figure 1.25
An example of a check Direction of
shrinkage

Timber free
to shrink

Figure 1.26
Splits
An example of a split

8 | Chapter 1 Introduction to timber

 EXTRACT FROM CHAPTER 2 – UNCORRECTED PROOFS

2.4.1 Calculating bending moments and shear forces

Key term
Calculating bending moments, shear forces and support reactions is a rela-
tively simple process. We treat our joist as a simply supported beam even
though this is just an approximation. This means that the support is pinned simply supported beam:
and no moment is transferred to the support. a single span beam with a
pin at one end and a pinned
roller at the other.

Beam

Support Support

Figure 2.13a
Span
Beam

The reaction at each end of the beam can be calculated using equilibrium
or by inspection as:

vl W
FEd = or FEd =
2 2

Figure 2.13b
Load diagram

The shear force VEd can then be seen to be equal to the maximum reaction
Further reading
at each end of the beam therefore:

vl W Structures: Theory and

VEd = FEd = or VEd =
2 2 Analysis, by M S Williams &
J D Todd, Macmillan, 2000
Fundamentals of Structural
Analysis, by Harry H West,
Wiley, 2002
Structural Analysis, by R C
Hibbeler, Prentice Hall, 2014

Figure 2.13c
Shear force

Chapter 2 Simple timber construction | 9

 EXTRACT FROM CHAPTER 2 – UNCORRECTED PROOFS

We can therefore calculate the maximum bending moment using the

equation:

vl2 Wl
MEd = or MEd =
8 8

Figure 2.13d
Bending moment

We can see that the peak bending moment occurs at the centre of the beam.

Similarly, for a point load in the middle of a simply supported beam if the
load is P (kN) then:

P Pl
VEd = and MEd =
2 4

Where l is the length of the beam between the supports.

10 | Chapter 2 Simple timber construction

 EXTRACT FROM CHAPTER 5 – UNCORRECTED PROOFS

5.4.5 Designing CLT in deflection

Designing CLT for deflection is very much the same as designing beams and
joists for deflection. The big difference of course being that the I value is now
replaced with Ieff.

For two equal spans the deflection becomes

vl4
d=
185EIeff

Deflection

0.4215 4 0.4215 Figure 5.17

d= Deflection of a symmetrical double
18SEIeff span slab

This gives an answer 2.4 times stiffer than for a simply supported beam
deflection which is of huge benefit, especially as we are losing stiffness in
the primary direction by changing the direction of the grain from layer to
layer.

In addition, kdef for CLT is the same as for plywood (which is similarly made of
layers of timber with the grain in alternating directions). Therefore, for service
class 1 it should be taken as 0.8 and for service class 2 it should be taken as 1
(note that these are higher values than for solid timber and for glulam).

The full calculation should account for both short term and long term deflec-
tion and all the correct load duration factors as outlined in 2.2.3 should be
included.

The shear deflection is typically ignored in CLT as it is typically a much

smaller proportion than for joists and beams due to the large area being
considered. You can consider it by simply applying the equations in chapter
2 and taking the area as the area of the layers running parallel to the span.

5.4.6 Designing CLT in vibration

Vibration analysis is a complex area and requires significant thought. In the
UK, vibration in building design does not consider structural failure (as you
would in bridges or buildings where there are earthquakes) but the experi-
ence of people in the building. As a result, vibration design is a serviceability
limit state consideration. Furthermore, because vibration is a function of

Chapter 5 Cross laminated timber | 11

 EXTRACT FROM CHAPTER 5 – UNCORRECTED PROOFS

human perception it is very hard to determine what is acceptable. If you

Further reading were to live in an old timber house and you could feel the floors vibrate, you
may put it down to the age of the building and think no more of it. If it was
a new building you may have a different reaction, expecting the building
Although written for steel to perform differently. Historically we have designed timber floors to be
construction, the SCI ‘bouncy’ compared to steel and concrete buildings. This creates a challenge
Publication P354 Design of for us going forward as we start to consider the vibration of timber floors in
Floors for Vibration: A New more detail. Do we continue to achieve the same standard as we have done
Approach is nevertheless a for many years in the UK, or do we try and enhance the design?
useful guide to vibration in
design for all materials. This section will explain the basics of vibration design, what we might
With detailed reference to consider and why, before giving some simple tools to use. It will not,
Eurocode 5 application, the however, go into substantial detail on the design for vibration, this could be
following inter paper is also a book in its own right.
invaluable: Abeysekera, I.K.,
Arup P. Harm, Biberach, We should also be aware just how important this area is. For other material
Toratti, T. et al, Inter 51-20-2 types vibration rarely governs design. But timber is strong and light. This
‘Development of a floor leads to vibration often being the governing factor above deflection, bending
vibration design method for and shear. As a result, for long spans we really need to design for vibration
Eurocode 5’, Federation of at the beginning of the design, not as an afterthought.
Finnish Wood
When designing for vibration we need to consider three things:

Figure 5.18 • First, the natural frequency.

The vibration of timber floors in • Second, what type of response we are concerned about (transient or
high-traffic structures can resonant).
present a challenge
Photograph Jim Stephenson

12 | Chapter 5 Cross laminated timber

 EXTRACT FROM CHAPTER 5 – UNCORRECTED PROOFS

• Third, the magnitude and whether it is an acceptable value. This is

often considered by using a response factor. For example, if you are
lying on a hospital operating theatre bed your body is much more
likely to feel vibration than during a Zumba class and therefore the
allowable acceleration/velocity needs to reflect this.

Natural frequency

The natural frequency is the frequency that the floor will choose to vibrate
at, if it can. All structures have a variety of modes of vibration, if we consider
our structure to be a simple beam element the first three modes are shown
below:

Figure 5.19
First three fundamental modes of a
1st mode 2nd mode 3rd mode beam

When designing timber floors, we are typically only interested in the first
mode, which has the lowest natural frequency. There are two reasons for this.
First, the first mode will dominate the response. Second, as you will see in
the next section, as the frequency goes up, so our awareness of the vibration
decreases.

Therefore, for most timber floors we only need to design for the first modal
frequency.

The first mode can be calculated in a number of ways.

The standard equation is:

f=
p
2l2
Î EIm
Where

l is the span
EI is the stiffness
m is the mass (note not the weight) of the floor.

We can rearrange the deflection equation

5 vl4
d= ×
384 EI

in terms of EI/m (we need to convert m to ω by accounting for gravity as m

is a mass and ω is a weight)

EI 5 l4
= ×
v 384 d

Chapter 5 Cross laminated timber | 13

 EXTRACT FROM CHAPTER 5 – UNCORRECTED PROOFS

We can then substitute in the deflection equation and rewrite the equation
as

18
f=
Îd

Where d is the deflection of the floor under the unfactored permanent action
only.

For natural frequency calculations, the weight of the floor is taken as the
weight that we can expect to be there when the vibration occurs. As a result,
we normally only include the permanent loads, which include the self weight
of the floor, ceiling, services and finishes.

The equations above lead to natural frequencies that are lower than
measured values on real floors. There are a number of reasons for this.

• First, the frequency is very sensitive to the assumed dead load. We

normally overestimate dead load to ensure our design is safe, but
this will lead to a lower frequency.
• Second, the above equations assume the ends are free to rotate
(pinned) however in reality the ends of CLT floors (and joists) often
show some degree of fixity, especially when considering vibration.
• Third, there is no account for damping. Damping is the loss of energy
and can occur for several reasons. Timber floors themselves demon-
strate 1%–3% damping. In addition, the furniture and people stood
on the floors will also damp out the vibrations.
• Finally, the above equations don’t account for the transverse stiffness
of the floor. We often assume our floors are one way spanning, which
is a good assumption for the design of bending, shear and deflection,
even for CLT floors. But for vibration the transverse stiffness will have
an impact, especially if the floor is supported on all four edges.

14 | Chapter 5 Cross laminated timber

EXTRACT FROM WORKED EXAMPLES – UNCORRECTED PROOFS

Worked examples | 15
Designing timber structures
An introduction

A comprehensive introduction to designing and engineering with timber

Progressive structure builds up knowledge and understanding
End-of-chapter worked examples consolidate learning and demonstrate
engineering principles
Highly illustrated with over 250 drawings and photographs

This book is aimed at engineering students who are designing for the first time, or for those who
have begun their journey into design and now want to learn more about designing specifically with
timber. It starts by introducing timber as a sustainable material; a key consideration in our current
climate emergency. Students then move through timber design basics such as deflection, strength
and buckling to enable the design of a timber floor and stud wall. Two chapters focus on core
engineered timber products: glue laminated and cross laminated timber. Finally, fire, acoustics,
detailing and additional considerations around the use of existing timber buildings are introduced.

Designing timber structures: an introduction aims to provide students with a solid understanding
of the key basic principles of designing with wood. Regular further reading references and links to
online material and sources provide students with the opportunity to access the broad and complex
spectrum of materials available for practising engineers.

Dr James Norman and Dr Andrew Thomson are passionate advocates of timber in engineering
design. James is Associate Professor in Sustainable Design at the University of Bristol while Andrew
has been a Teaching Fellow at the University of Bath. Both worked extensively in private practice
before moving into teaching and drew on that wealth of sustainable design experience to bring
Designing timber structures: an introduction to life.

BM TRADA, part of the Element Group, provides a comprehensive range of independent

testing, inspection, certification, technical and training services. We help our customers
to make certain that the management systems, supply chain and product certification
schemes they operate are compliant and fit for purpose.
BM TRADA is TRADA’s appointed provider for its research and information
programmes, and for the administration of its membership services.

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ISBN 978-1-909594-84-5
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