Engineering new timber products for taller structures Tuesday, 12 July 2016

The University of Queensland, along with the engineering firm Arup, Lendlease, Hyne Timber, and the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, are on a mission to engineer new timber building products, allowing timber to be used to build taller structures.

The partners have come together to establish the Centre for Future Timber Structures (CFTS) at the University of Queensland's Advance Engineering Building. The centre will receive $1 million in government funding over five years, as well as in-kind contributions.

The Centre Director, Professor Jose Torero, says its mission is to research ways to use timber to meet the challenges of sustainable construction — and innovative engineering will play a central role in this.

Goals include developing engineering solutions that address current barriers to the use of structural timber in the fast-growing and extensive medium-rise tall buildings market where timber is an ideal construction material.

"The centre houses a new Australian Research Council-funded Industrial Transformation Hub with a mission to engineer new timber building products," Professor Torero said.

"The findings will help deliver tall timber buildings and transform the timber industry in Queensland."

Key to the research effort is research emerging from the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries' Forest Product Innovation team at the Salisbury Research facility, which is undertaking semi-commercial-scale processing and prototyping work that is helping accelerate research findings into solutions for industry.

With product manufacturers, fire safety engineers, and structural engineers working together at the CFTS, almost all aspects of tall timber engineering will be covered by the multi-disciplinary team.

Researchers at the new centre will work closely with Queensland Fire and Emergency Service to ensure the inherent fire safety of timber products and buildings.

They will also leverage previous research on robotic construction and digital fabrication to potentially drastically increase construction speed, while reducing the weight of material and waste on site.

Researchers involved in the new centre have already developed new products using techniques from the aerospace industry to greatly improve the strength of timber products.