Cost-effective Timber Structures

The paper presents examples of cost-effective glulam timber structures in Croatia. These are glulam timber structure of a tennis hall in Rovinj made in 1997, Sports Hall in Nedelišće near Čakovec made in 2007 and an overhang structure which has just been designed and will be made in Lučko near Zagreb. All of them are presented to point out to the possibilities of cost-effective building with glulam timber and timber products. Glulam timber has been used for a number of years as a material for diverse structures and will definitely continue to be so in the future. The presented structures for sports or for general purposes show that it is possible to design and construct such structures in a cost-effective way, particularly when they are spatial 3D structures. All numerical analyses of the presented timber structures have been made with COSMOSM, STAAD Pro or Win STRUDL software. COSMOSM makes possible a realistic modelling of structures and obtaining of accurate results which are compared with the results of tests in the Laboratory of the Technical Mechanics Department of the Faculty of Civil Engineering University of Zagreb. Compliance of numerical analyses and tests results is very good within limits of 95-100 %. More details of the calculation and analysis will be presented at the congress. Timber structures are currently among the most acceptable lightweight structures for a number of reasons favouring their application. Timber is a healthy structural material very acceptable in all countries, particularly in areas prone to earthquakes, where lightweight glulam timber or cross-laminated wooden plates for use in housing construction are well tolerating the earthquakes. Their volume weight is 5 times smaller than the volume weight of reinforced concrete and the forces occurring in the earthquake are 5 times smaller. In one word, timber is a sustainable structural material, with minimum environment pollution and CO2 emission from timber industry. Besides, timber is a reliable structural material resistant to chemical agents, chlorides, nitrates, etc. Timber also has good fire resistance qualities as it protects itself in the fire and does not loose its elastomechanic properties for long time. This particularly refers to glulam timber elements or cross-laminated wooden plates, which are self-extinguishing if there are no fire-supporting materials. Whenever possible, particularly with roof structures with high span up to 100 m, timber is recommended as bearing structure material.