With recent pressures to extract more value from the Alberta wood resource, efforts are being made to find higher value products that can be marketed along with SPF lumber traditionally used in the construction industry. Products such as reinforced glulam, edge glued and face glued lumber, or overlaid laminated veneer lumber provide additional opportunities for the medium-size Alberta lumber producers who are challenged by fierce competition in a commodity-focused market.
Given the steady increase in the utilization of glued products in structural applications, there is a strong potential for further expansion of these markets. A recently developed standard that allows products to be manufactured from face- and edge-gluing of components paves the way for the development of a wide range of products specifically designed for the construction market.
A situational analysis of the current state of the Alberta forest industry is presented here. It includes resources, markets, codes and standards, technical and market challenges, and prospects for developing higher value structural wood products by gluing wood together or reinforcing wood with other materials.
AFRI-817G-06, 5063 pertaining to Composite products - Markets; Alberta - Economic conditions
Fibre-reinforced wood systems are light, strong, stiff composites that can efficiently replace larger wood members and can be relied on to provide consistent mechanical properties.
This report is an introduction to fibre-reinforced wood systems for members of the Canadian wood products industry. It provides the motivation for reinforcing wood with synthetic fibres, and surveys the choice of materials and their uses. Numerous examples of current applications are discussed to demonstrate the strong and weak points of various approaches and examine the durability and management of fibre-reinforced wood products, as well as to indicate opportunities that exist for the Canadian wood products industry.
This report is intended to be a useful reference for the Canadian wood products industry, and assist future developments in structural and non-structural applications of fibre-reinforced wood products.
This report describes work to provide research information suitable for implementing design procedures for diaphragms with thick sheathing in the Canadian Standard for Engineering Design in Wood (CAN/CSA O86.1) and to make the information available to other markets by publishing the results and recommended procedures in a journal article.
