The Canadian lumber industry has identified, as a high priority, the establishment of a multi-year Lumber Properties Program that pulls together a number of urgent initiatives currently underway to establish and/or maintain Canadian lumber design values. The desire is to have an overall program that emphasizes the proper development of a longer-term strategic plan and process to deal with current and future initiatives. Combining the current industry resources with Federal Government contributions through Natural Resources Canada (NRCan), the first step in the Program has been completed: to gather the various initiatives now underway and to begin the formal development of pan-Canadian policies to guide the development, implementation and on-going maintenance of such initiatives.
The key activities in 2006-07 were:
Launching of the pilot phase of the on-going monitoring program, and development of a simulation model to assist in determining what sort of trends can be reliably detected and which cannot;
Completion of the in-grade testing program on Canadian Norway spruce;
Analysis of the No.2 2x4 Hem-Fir (N) monitoring study and confirmation of the appropriateness of assigned design values;
Identification of an alternative species grouping procedure for further study;
Starting of a process under the ASTM Committee on Wood to address gaps in the Grade Quality Index provisions in ASTM Practice D1990, and
Establishing a forum for engaging the US in discussions on lumber properties issues.
Lumber properties issues crucial to maintaining the competitiveness of Canadian lumber continue to be the same as in previous years: tests and means to adjust for sample representativeness using the Grade Quality Index (GQI), species grouping and re-grouping procedures, and on-going lumber monitoring. As a result, discussion on a pan-Canadian strategy and supporting policies necessary to support Canadian lumber initiatives tend to focus on these three issues. The challenge is to ensure that these issues are dealt with in a way that balances both short and longer-term needs and provides a net overall benefit to the Canadian industry.
Ce rapport décrit les résultats d’études en cours ou antérieures réalisées par Forintek sur les méthodes utilisées pour l’aboutage du bois et la qualité des produits. Il donne une description détaillée des différents paramètres susceptibles d’affecter le procédé d’aboutage et la qualité du produit fini. Il contient également une masse de renseignements publiés dans le cadre d’ateliers, de conférences ou de revues techniques. Cette information a été regroupée et intégrée dans un format simplifié de façon à être utilisable dans la fabrication des bois aboutés. L’un des chapitres porte sur le processus de qualification et de contrôle de la qualité des bois de charpente aboutés et décrit les normes canadiennes de produits spéciaux applicables. On trouvera à la fin de chaque section un paragraphe traitant d’idées de recherche novatrices, de questions importantes pour l’industrie canadienne du bois abouté et de lacunes dans les connaissances.
Through the coordinated initiatives of industry and the Provincial and Federal governments, Canada has made significant progress in the acceptance of Canadian wood products and wood-frame construction in the codes and standards of China, Taiwan and South Korea. Technical input to support favourable revisions to the codes and standards in these countries has been spearheaded by Forintek staff, with support from representatives from various national organizations in Canada and the US. In this process, Forintek also has established a network of experts in these countries, which Canada can use in addressing potential future technical barriers.
The effort has resulted in changes to the Chinese quality inspection code (GB 50206) and the timber design code (GB 50005). The GB 50206 was released in July 2002. The inclusion of North American wood frame construction and products has helped speed up inspection for wood frame construction in China.
The GB 50005 was released in January 2004. The newly enacted code allows local engineers to design North American platform frame construction and specify North American species groups of structural lumber that are graded to rules that are compatible with those in Canada. Fire protection regulations have also been revised to position wood frame construction on the same playing field as buildings made of concrete and steel: for example, wood frame construction can now be built up to three storeys, and spatial separations can be as close as 4 m.
Progress has also been made in Taiwan. The revised Taiwanese timber design code approved in 2003 contains engineering and pre-engineered designs adopted from North America standards. The submission of technical comparisons of the Canadian and Taiwanese standards to the Taiwanese government will help the Canadian forest industries to obtain Taiwanese regulatory recognition that Canadian wood products in compliance with Canadian standards will meet the pertinent Taiwanese standards. This recognition will give Canadian suppliers a head start in establishing a share of the Taiwanese market.
The effort in 2003-04 builds on the successful working relationship established with the various codes and standards committees in China and Taiwan to assist them in introducing the North American wood frame construction system. Although it is understood that there are still a number of technical and market support items to address, this program ensures that a coherent infrastructure is developed to support the use of Canadian wood products in the Far East markets.
Building construction - Specifications - China
Building construction - Specifications - Taiwan
Building construction - Specifications - South Korea
Structural engineering - Specifications - China
Structural engineering - Specifications - Taiwan
Structural engineering - Specifications - South Korea
The current Canadian Lumber Properties (LP) program was established to support multi-year research on topics judged by the industry to be critical to the safe and viable use of Canadian dimension lumber in structural applications. This program, in combination with the National Lumber Grades Authority’s grading rules and the accredited third party grading agencies, form the backbone of the Canadian lumber quality system. This system enables Canadian lumber producers to grade and ship Canadian lumber for use in North American and overseas structural building applications.
When initiated in 2005, the program focussed on five areas. The effort is now focussed on three areas: 1) maintenance of existing lumber design values by means of an ongoing lumber properties monitoring program; 2) working with the US/Canada task group established to guide the development of standard procedures published in ASTM D1990 and used in the establishment of lumber design values; and 3) liaison with university-based research groups to leverage research suitable for addressing longer-term research needs in the area of lumber properties.
In 2010/11, the ongoing monitoring program was initiated for SPF. This follows the 2-year pilot monitoring program, which was also carried out on SPF. Due to the late start, no testing was carried out this year. The start-up of the program was timely because in August 2010, the American Lumber Standard Committee (ALSC) directed the Lumber Properties Task Group (TG) to draft mandatory lumber monitoring procedures for implementation in ASTM D1990. Work done to date on the Pilot study and previous monitoring studies well positioned the FPInnovations, CWC and the NLGA to participate in the TG discussion.
Planned work with the TG and the US Forest Products Laboratory, Madison (USFPL) on new species grouping procedures for ASTM D1990 was suspended. The TG recommended that the work continue under ASTM as opposed to under the TG. Although next steps were discussed with the USFPL, these have been put on hold until the work on implementing lumber monitoring procedures in ASTM D1990 is substantially complete.
A new study to examine the application of machine grading to sawn timbers was initiated under this program. The study, if successful, will lead to a detailed study plan for developing new design values for timbers based on a hybrid “machine” and “output” controlled approach. The information would also be used as a basis for a new NLGA Special Products Standard.
Finally, funding for the second year of the NSERC Collaborative Research and Development (CRD) grant for the UBC/SFU Forest Products Stochastic Modelling Group was approved. This has permitted some of the longer term lumber properties issues to be presented as topics for Graduate Research Assistantships for the summer of 2011, leading potentially to MSc or PhD studies in the fall.
This report summarises those issues embodied in building codes and product standards with implications for marketing solid wood siding in Canada and selected other countries. The intention is that technical knowledge gaps can be identified and possibly filled before marketing white spruce siding. Literature searches were done and personal contacts with experts in these countries were made in order to place siding in the context of international codes and standards. However database searches identified only a few documents related to the performance requirements of solid wood cladding products. These issues are discussed under three main headings: material and construction, fire resistance and durability, and weather protection. Apart from fire there is very little reference to solid wood siding in either North American or international building codes. It appears that the long use of the product has effectively been grandfathered in traditional siding application and use. This is, however, not the case for non-solid wood siding where a number of material-specific standards exist which ensure that the products have comparable performance to traditional products or to address performance deficiencies that are specific to that material. Wood siding use in new markets will not be grandfathered in, and there will probably be a need to develop standards and data similar to those for non-wood products.
Les importations en Amérique du Nord de meubles fabriqués en Asie, principalement en Chine, menacent sérieusement l’industrie du meuble au Canada. Face à cette situation, la qualité des meubles fabriqués au Canada et le respect des normes de construction et de sécurité présentent un potentiel comme outil de marketing. Le sceau « Qualité Canada » que l’Association des fabricants de meubles du Québec (AFMQ) a récemment développé est un premier pas dans cette direction. Le présent projet visait à évaluer la conformité aux normes nord-américaines de meubles fabriqués en Chine. Une sélection de meubles a été soumise à une série d’essais afin de vérifier si les produits chinois respectent les normes telles que la limite d’émissions de formaldéhyde. Une non-conformité aux normes nord-américaines de construction et de sécurité des produits fabriqués en Chine peut être utilisée comme outil de marketing. Les connaissances acquises à l’aide du présent projet serviront comme barrière non tarifaire à l’importation de meubles asiatiques fabriqués à faible coût.
A new design Section on Lateral Load Resisting Systems (LLRSs) was introduced in the 2009 edition of Canadian Standard for engineering Design in Wood (CSA O86). The activities presented in this report (development of technical papers, development of technical polls and attending various code committees) have a goal to continue the work in this field by further improving the new Section on LLRSs by implementing additional design information for other wood-based structural systems and assemblies. During the last two years, several technical polls and papers were developed and presented to various code committees for future code implementation. These activities will help design engineers to use timber in structural systems in residential and non-residential buildings in Canada and the US.
By the summer of 2001, a new Canadian structural wood adhesive standard is expected to be available for use with the glued wood product standards published by the National Lumber Grades Authority (NLGA) for use with its glued wood product standards. This standard will permit Canadian structural lumber producers to consider and use a wider range of wood adhesives than is currently possible. Prior to the development of this standard, producers of glued structural lumber products were limited to phenol resorcinol formaldehyde or resorcinol formaldehyde adhesives. The same limitations applied to Canadian producers of other glued products such as laminated beams and laminated veneer lumber. This is because a standard for assessing structural wood adhesives other than these adhesives was simply not available in Canada. In other words, newer adhesives offering light-coloured bondlines and potentially more flexibility in processing and/or lower processing equipment costs were not permitted primarily because an acceptable means for evaluating them was not available.
A substantial portion of the new standard was drawn up under this research program. A complete draft structural wood adhesive standard was developed; however, following the completion of an inter-laboratory testing program, the technical information was found to be only sufficient to qualify structural wood adhesives for dry service conditions. The proposed standard was not judged to be suitable for assessing adhesives for wet or exterior service conditions. Consequently, the draft standard was tabled as a “dry use” structural wood adhesive standard.
Following consultation with an Industry Working Group and, shortly afterwards, the NLGA Standards Committee, a strong recommendation was made by industry representatives to continue the program and make another attempt at developing a standard for exterior service conditions. With additional funding from Forest Renewal BC and the Forintek National Research Program, the program was re-started to build on the draft dry use standard.
The extension to the original program was successful in developing a draft standard suitable for exterior service conditions. This draft standard is now the basis of the approved NLGA adhesive document: NLGA SPS Annex A, Standard Specification for Evaluation of Adhesives for Structural Wood Products (Exterior Exposure). The NLGA SPS Annex A is currently under consideration by the Canadian Lumber Standards Accreditation Board and is expected to be approved by the summer of 2001. The NLGA SPS Annex A has also been accepted as the base document for a new CSA wood adhesive standard. Although the CSA process has been shortened considerably by adopting the NLGA SPS Annex A as a starting point, the CSA process is still expected to take several years to complete, as it is a more rigorous consensus process. In the interim, it is expected that many of the needs of the Canadian glued lumber products industry can be met by the NLGA SPS Annex A.
This document is a preliminary report summarizing the progress during the first year of a two-year project entitled “Development of a Colour Standard for the Furniture Industry”. Colorimetric measurements were taken at five furniture and furniture component manufacturers in order to assess current practices used to colour-match strips for wood panel production. Results take into consideration all the manufacturing facilities and an appendix details each participating manufacturer’s specific results, which are held in confidence and may only be provided to the manufacturer in question.
The section entitled “Work planned for the second year” presents the activities planned for the second, and final, year of the project.
