Wood construction industry

The operation reduces the amount of discarded wood, which is otherwise deposited at landfills or burned. A new service life is given to old wood and its lifetime is extended, which directly influence the prolongation of CO2 storage. The key sources of old wood will are defined, technological solutions for the use of such wood was developed and procedures for the production of windows were developed in cooperation with R&D institutions with an emphasis on the analysis of contaminated wood, physical properties of wood and the appropriate surface treatment of such products.

M Sora has developed a prototype of a timber window ReWin made of disposed timber. ReWin window is a unique example of a product that was developed by recycling the disposed timber that would otherwise end up at landfill, and represents a completely fresh idea and innovation in the field of builders’ joinery.

Since Harghita County is rich in wood source, the main aim of this policy is to encourage and promote the use of wood in constructions first of all at the level of public buildings but to enlarge it on business and household level. This successful implementation project from Harghita County we are going to expand this approach on national level in Romania. This policy approach should be taken into account at in other regions of Romania as well. 52% of Harghita County’s turnover is given by forest management and wood processing. 35.6 % of the County’s surface is covered by forest, 47% of these forests are owned by local forest owner associations, the rest being owned by private owners and local public authorities, churches and state. The most important lessons from this best practice is the consciousness and endurance of the local stakeholders. The policy aims to identify how forests can provide new jobs and business opportunities in order to keep rural communities alive. Beside the fact of strengthening the idea of traditional use of wood, there is a need to create new, competitive wooden products with high added value. In order to protect the local wood processing based industry the policy of County Council does not allow the establishment of international investors who would like to exploit the county’s natural resources without adding high value added activity on local level. Taking into account that at this moment there isn’t any big company, investor in the field of silviculture and forestry establish in the county this is already a positive impact of the policy.

The project aims to develop new models of prefabricated ultra-lightweight panels consisting of a combination of solid wood products, wood-based products and the use of thermal and acoustic insulation. The application of a tongue and groove system to assemble panels to each other and solid pieces of traditional heavy wooden framework, emulating a semi-heavy framework, will allow the development of a new innovative construction system aimed at modular construction, quick assembly and with enormous versatility and adaptation to different designs and types of construction.

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The structural characterisation of the panels will be carried out by means of mechanical laboratory tests, as well as thermal, acoustic and watertightness characterisation by analytical means.

The aim of the project is to develop a construction system known as High Efficiency Light Panel (HELP). Consists of a set of innovative solutions based on a mixture of lightweight timber framing and cross laminated timber (CLT), for the manufacture of "Zero Emission" walls, slabs and roofs.

There is an improvement of the structural capacity of the construction system that allows more height (3-4 floors) than with the traditional lightweight building. The positioning of a three-layer or CLT board on the inside of the walls acts directly as a vapour barrier, saving the cost of installation.

The new building solutions are based on wooden or wood-base panels which will be subjected to tests, analytical calculations and numerical approximations for their structural, thermal, acoustic, watertight and fire resistance characterization. In addition, its environmental characterization (CO2, reutilization) will be carried out.
A solution with the new construction system has been defined for use in slabs, walls and roofs. Spreadsheets have been developed to obtain thermal transmissivity, surface and interstitial condensations, sound absorption and structural capacity.

Structural sawn timber intended for construction must offer similar guarantees to those offered by other materials and products intended for the structural construction sector. For this purpose, it is necessary to develop classification tools that allow manufacturers and marketers to certify the strength and stiffness values of all the wood that is placed on the market (adjusted to the species and origin that corresponds).
It is, in addition to being a legal obligation, a tool for the valuation of wood that is enabling a competitive improvement of its industrial network.

Technological development of structural sawn timber not only enables it to be directly promoted in the construction sector as a construction element, but also to be incorporated into the manufacture of technological products with high added value, such as glued laminated timber, duos, trios, CLT, prefabricated panels... These are high value-added products that require high levels of competitiveness that cannot be achieved without their main raw material, structural sawn timber, increasing its competitiveness, optimising its manufacturing times and its declared mechanical properties

Visual classification tools have been developed for the main commercial wood species found in Spanish forest stands, such as Pinus sylvestris, Pinus insigne, Pinus nigra, Pinus pinaster, Abies alba, Pseudotsuga menziesii, Quercus rubra, Castanea sativa and Eucalyptus globulus. Tools that in many cases enable the possibility of classifying structural sawn timber into three structural qualities, which allows the different qualities of wood that the timber industry places on the construction market to be classified and valued.
Mechanical classification systems are currently being developed for the main species of the Pinus genus. This is one more step in the competitive improvement of this type of wood, as it improves the classification times and the classifying performance in the different mechanical qualities.
Both developments have enhanced the value of the wood of the different wood species characterized, and have promoted its use in construction.