Long-Term Moisture Monitoring Results of an Eight-Story Mass Timber Building in the Pacific Northwest
Publication: Journal of Architectural Engineering
Volume 27, Issue 4
Abstract
In 2017, a moisture monitoring study was initiated on an eight-story, mass timber building located in Portland, Oregon. A detailed description of the monitoring program and initial monitoring results from the first year of the program were published previously. It was discovered that by the end of Year 1, some of the mass timber components had not dried below 19% moisture content (MC). This technical note is a follow-up to the original paper to examine how the building changed over its first 3 years after construction. All of the locations monitored over 3 years have reached stable moisture contents between 10% and 15%, which are acceptable for building functionality and performance. The main conclusion from this study is that mass timber buildings can naturally recover from construction wetting provided that such buildings are properly enclosed and further moisture intrusion is prevented.
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Data Availability Statement
All data, models, and code that support the findings of the study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Acknowledgments
This project is funded by US Forest Services Wood Innovation Fund under Grant Number 16-DG-11020000-060. The research team would like to acknowledge the continued support and assistance provided by Ben Kaiser and Eric Wiley of Kaiser Group, and Kris Spickler and Steve Bamford of Structurlam. Special thanks to McKauly Malone who aided in the installation of all monitoring instrumentation used in this project. The opinion expressed in this paper is that of the authors and does not represent the opinion of the sponsors and collaborators.
References
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© 2021 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Feb 3, 2021
Accepted: Jun 7, 2021
Published online: Jul 21, 2021
Published in print: Dec 1, 2021
Discussion open until: Dec 21, 2021
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Cited by
- Yu Ding, Zhenqian Pang, Kai Lan, Yuan Yao, Guido Panzarasa, Lin Xu, Marco Lo Ricco, Douglas R. Rammer, J. Y. Zhu, Ming Hu, Xuejun Pan, Teng Li, Ingo Burgert, Liangbing Hu, Emerging Engineered Wood for Building Applications, Chemical Reviews, 10.1021/acs.chemrev.2c00450, 123, 5, (1843-1888), (2022).