Tallwood Design Institute

Fire Testing for Efficient Tall Buildings

2020-2026

This project aimed to provide technical data addressing known gaps in previous CLT compartment fire testing. In particular, the researchers designed tests using high fuel loads that included modern household items (furniture, cleaning supplies, electronics). They varied the amount of fire protection on the mass timber and monitored fire behavior, temperatures within the mass timber members, and emissions throughout all phases of the tests.

Research Team:
Erica Fischer, Laura Hasbargh, David Barber, Kara Yedinak, Amara Holder

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Fire Testing for Efficient Timber Buildings – NHERI

2020-2023

The data collected from these experiments were used to demonstrate the fire performance of cross-laminated timber (CLT) buildings and to change the International Building Code (IBC) prescriptive fire protection design provisions for mass timber buildings.

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Fire Performance of CLT and NLT Timber-Concrete, Composite Floors

2018-2020

In order to develop a comprehensive analysis of such composite systems, the fire-tested assemblies matched those being tested by Dr. Andre Barbosa (Project: Seismic Performance of Cross-Laminated Timber and Cross-Laminated Timber-Concrete Composite Floor Diaphragms, 2017-2020) and Dr. Chris Higgins (Project: Composite Concrete-CLT Floor Systems for Tall Building Design, 2017-2020).

Research Team:
Erica Fischer – Oregon State University (OSU), School of Civil and Construction Engineering
André Barbosa – OSU School of Civil and Construction Engineering
Arijit Sinha – OSU Department of Wood Science and Engineering

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Mitigating Fire Performance Concern Through Fire Endurance Modeling

2018-2019

The Mitigating Fire Concerns project is in collaboration with the Forest Products Laboratory in Madison, Wisconsin, which has a chamber to test elevated temperatures up to 330 degrees Celsius. In the lab, the project will take the connection systems from the Composite CLT-Concrete Floor Systems for Tall Building Design project and test them over elevated temperatures to evaluate strength properties as well as how the stiffness and strength degrade at different levels of elevated temperatures.

Project Lead:
Arijit Sinha

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Fire Penetration Testing

2017-2018

In the U.S. there is limited information published on the performance of through-penetration fire seals in cross-laminated timber floors. TDI has partnered with ARUP and the Framework project, a 12-story mass timber building project in Portland, to investigate and test through-penetrations to the ASTM E814 standard.

Technical Advisors: David Barber, Lech Muszynski

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Fire Performance of CLT Wall and Floor Assemblies Fabricated in the Pacific Northwest Region

2016-2020

This project will document the flammability of Douglas-fir and spruce-pine-fir CLT panel assemblies produced in the United States. Tests are being conducted on wall and floor panel assemblies with standard overlapping connections and produced with two different types of commonly-used adhesives.

Research Team:
Lech Muszynski, Department of Wood Science & Engineering (PI),
Rakesh Gupta, Department of Wood Science & Engineering (co-PI),
Milo Clauson, Department of Wood Science & Engineering (FRA)

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Fire Performance

Fire Testing for Efficient Tall Buildings

2020-2026

Fire Testing for Efficient Timber Buildings – NHERI

2020-2023

Fire Performance of CLT and NLT Timber-Concrete, Composite Floors

2018-2020

Mitigating Fire Performance Concern Through Fire Endurance Modeling

2018-2019

Fire Penetration Testing

2017-2018

Fire Performance of CLT Wall and Floor Assemblies Fabricated in the Pacific Northwest Region

2016-2020

Location