Recycling timber in new mass timber construction products

Abstract

The Innovative Design for the Future Use and Reuse of Wooden building components (InFutUReWood) project aims to examine if recovered timber is suited for contemporary timber architecture. To address this aim, series of structural testing programmes were carried out on products manufactured using recovered softwood and hardwood timber from a number of partner countries. These products include cross-laminated timber (CLT) panels, glued-laminated timber (GLT) beams and IsoTimber wall panels. In addition, series of tests were performed on similar products manufactured from new timber and on hybrid panels with mixed recovered and new timber to enable the evaluation of the relative performance characteristics of the different products. Tests were also carried out to evaluate the bonding characteristics and the embedment behaviour of recovered wood. Finally, a comparison between the environmental impacts of CLT manufactured from recovered and from primary wood was performed using life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology The report shows that the use of recovered timber in high-value material applications like CLT or GLT is to current knowledge an environmentally and technically feasible option and can contribute to the implementation of wood cascading as part of a bio-based economy.