Field measurement of vertical movement and roof moisture performance of the Wood Innovation and Design Centre : instrumentation and first year's performance
Two of the major topics of interest to those designing taller and larger wood buildings are the susceptibility to differential movement and the likelihood of mass timber components drying slowly after they are wetted during construction. The Wood Innovation and Design Centre in Prince George, British Columbia provides a unique opportunity for non-destructive testing and monitoring to measure the ‘As Built’ performance of a relatively tall mass timber building. Field measurements also provide performance data to support regulatory and market acceptance of wood-based systems in tall and large buildings.
This report first describes instrumentation to measure the vertical movement of selected glulam columns and cross-laminated timber (CLT) walls in this building. Three locations of glulam columns and one CLT wall of the core structure were selected for measuring vertical movement along with the environmental conditions (temperature and humidity) in the immediate vicinity. The report then describes instrumentation to measure the moisture changes in the wood roof structure. Six locations in the roof were selected and instrumented for measuring moisture changes in the wood as well as the local environmental conditions.
All sensors and instrumentations, with the exception of one, were installed and became operational in the middle of March 2014, after the roof sheathing was installed. The other instrumentation was installed in July 2014. This report presents performance of the building during its first year as measured from topping out of the structure. In the end, the one-year period covers six months of construction and six months of occupancy. This is the first year of a planned five-year monitoring.
The first year’s monitoring showed that the wood inside the building had reached moisture content (MC) of about 4-6% in the heating season, from an initial MC of 13% during construction. Glulam columns were extremely dimensionally stable given the changes in MC and loading conditions. With a height of over 5 m and 6 m, respectively, the two glulam columns measured in this study showed very small amounts of vertical movement, each below 2 mm. The cumulative shortening of the six glulam columns along the height of the building would be about 8 mm, not taking into account deformation at connection details or effects of reduced loads on upper floors. The CLT wall was found to be also dimensionally stable along the height of the building. The measurements showed that the entire CLT wall, from Floor 1 to Floor 6, would shorten about 14 mm. The CLT floors, however, had considerable shrinkage in the thickness direction, and therefore should be taken into consideration in the design and construction of components, such as curtain walls, which are connected to the floors. In terms of the roof performance, two locations, both with a wet concrete layer poured above the plywood sheathing, showed wetness during construction but dried slowly afterwards. The good drying performance must be attributed to the interior ventilation function designed for the roof assemblies by integrating strapping between the sheathing and the mass timber beams below. Overall this monitoring study shows the differential movement occurring among the glulam columns and the CLT wall is small and the wood roof has good drying performance.
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