Location:
ETH Zürich, Switzerland
Ongoing projects and initiatives
This page contains a list of selected ongoing projects and initiatives from all over the world. The projects are presented along with their project partners and main objectives.
Reliability based design of timber in fire
Duration of construction:
mm.yyyy – (ongoing)
Project partners:
Chair of Timber Structures (ETHZ), supported by COST
Website:
The objective of the project is to examine the current design approach in Eurocode 5 for timber in fire with a reliability analysis and to derive partial safety factors. The motivation for the project is the use of 20% fractile values for the strength of timber in fire, whereas 5% fractiles are used with other materials. For the first time, a reliability analysis for timber in fire is conducted, what also includes fire experiments and extensive simulations.
Natural fire exposure of timber structures
Location:
ETH Zürich, Switzerland
Duration of construction:
mm.yyyy – (ongoing)
Project partners:
Chair of Timber Structures (ETHZ), supported by SNF
Website:
Timber structures have to provide the same level of fire safety as non-combustible elements. At the moment, design is based on standard fire exposure while limited knowledge is available when exposed to deviating fires, so called design or natural fires. This project investigates the behavior of timber when exposed to non-standard fires.
FIRENWOOD – Improved fire design of engineered wood systems in buildings
Location:
RISE Fire Research, Norway
Duration of construction:
2019 – 2022 (ongoing)
Project partners:
RISE Fire Research (NO), RISE (SE), MPA University Stuttgart (DE), TalTech (EE), Technical University of Munich (DE), ETH Zurich (CH), Masonite Beams (SE), Moelven (NO) and Splitkon (NO); funded by ForestValue Research Programme
Website:
FIRENWOOD will fill knowledge gaps regarding fire safe use of engineered wood systems, with focus on structural joints and adhesives in cross-laminated timber (CLT), glued-laminated timber (GLT) and wood-based I-joists, and develop validated and relevant fire design models for these systems as well as classification methods for adhesives. A key point is to investigate the behavior of adhesives used in structural applications, as many of these innovative systems utilize different adhesives.
Testing with 11 selected adhesives will be performed in different labs and at different scale including cone calorimeter tests, fire tests and tests at elevated temperatures. Appropriate test methodology will be proposed to evaluate adhesive behavior. Fire design models for eng. wood products will be improved taking into account the influence of adhesive behavior.