Guiding Mass Timber Design and Research: A Parametric Modeling Approach to Understanding Impacts
Publication: Structures Congress 2023
ABSTRACT
Mass timber structures have been gaining ground in recent years due to several factors including aesthetics, scheduling, and sustainability. However, there is limited guidance on how key design decisions, such as mass timber structural types and bay sizes, affect a project’s ability to meet sustainability targets, particularly at the early design stage when many decisions are made. To develop a dataset that would help inform early decisions, a parametric modeling approach was developed to study five mass timber and hybrid mass timber structural floor systems. This paper discusses the methods used in the model, as well as a model verification process using code and solution verification. The model consists of both a Grasshopper model interfaced with Rhino and a spreadsheet-based model, which are used to evaluate the multi-disciplinary nature of the design space. This modeling process is part of a larger research effort to develop early-stage design guidance for practitioners.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Structures Congress 2023
Pages: 230 - 246
History
Published online: May 1, 2023
ASCE Technical Topics:
- Aesthetics
- Building design
- Building materials
- Business management
- Design (by type)
- Engineering fundamentals
- Engineering materials (by type)
- Materials engineering
- Mathematics
- Methodology (by type)
- Models (by type)
- Parameters (statistics)
- Practice and Profession
- Research methods (by type)
- Statistics
- Structural engineering
- Structural models
- Structural systems
- Structures (by type)
- Sustainable development
- Verification
- Wood and wood products
- Wood structures
Authors
Metrics & Citations
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Cited by
- Samantha Leonard, Nathan C. Brown, Ryan Solnosky, Impact of Prescriptive Fire Design Provisions on Embodied Carbon for International Building Code Type IV Construction, Practice Periodical on Structural Design and Construction, 10.1061/PPSCFX.SCENG-1418, 29, 2, (2024).