Journal of Commerce – March 23, 2016
Wood WORKS! BC has just completed a case study that shows that wood is an effective building material in the seismic upgrades of schools in coastal B.C.
“As our understanding of earthquake behaviour has evolved, more sophisticated approaches to the seismic design of buildings have been developed,” said Jim Taggart, the author of Seismic Design With Wood: Solutions for British Columbia Schools. “Well-designed, ductile wood buildings fare better and pose less risk to occupants than those constructed in heavier materials such as masonry and concrete.”
The seismic advantages of mass timber structures, such as cross-laminated timber (CLT) and nail-laminated timber (NLT), stem from the fact that the forces that are unleashed in an earthquake are proportional to the structure’s weight and wood is much lighter than either steel or concrete.