Timber design

This is related to structural engineering.

Timber Design

Timber Design is process of designing structures (buildings) out of wood (referred to as timber in engineering). The design process is very similar as the process used to design steel structures. The major difference being that timber members (beams and columns), are usually rectangular, where-as steel members can come in a variety of shapes, such as I-beams, Angles, and HSS Tubes.

Background

Timber is one of the oldest building materials still in existance. One of the reasons is that trees are one of the only building materials that can be found almost anywhere in the world. Trees are very strong and ductile, which make them ideal for uses in large structures.

Trees are one of the only truely renewable resource. For every tree that is cut down several can be planted in its place (and in America, often they are),

Structures are made of Beams and Columns. One way to think of it is that the beams are the horizontal members, and the columns are the vertical members. A more scientific definition states that beams take Shear Forces and Moment foces, while columns take Axial Forces.

Design Process

To design a building, you must first design the members in the structure. The design process consists of first calculating the forces that are applied on a building, such as the Self Weight (Dead Load), Live Load, and Wind or Earthquake Forces (Seismic forces)). Once you have the forces that are applied to the building you, then need to find how much of that load the members (ie the beams or columns), can take. If the members can take more forces than those that are applied on it from the Weights, and Wind/Seismic, then your building is safe. If the forces are more than your members can take you have to go back, and redesign the members to take more weight; usually this involves choosing a member that has a greater cross-sectional area (ie a member that is deeper, or wider).

Beam Design

Consider a beam as follows.