A new product designed by a team at Lakehead University could be used in the construction of mass timber high-rise buildings.

Mass timber uses state-of-the-art technology to glue, nail, or dowel wood products together in layers to create large structural panels, posts, and beams.

It’s engineered for high strength ratings such as concrete and steel but weighs significantly less.

Lakehead Civil Engineering professor and department chair Sam Salem worked with graduate student Cory Hubbard to develop and test a cutting-edge timber beam-to-column connection.

It’s designed to achieve one hour of resistance from fire without any additional protection.

Their idea has received a patent certificate from the Canadian Intellectual Property Office and has patent-pending status in the US.

Salem calls the growing use of mass timber in high-rise building an exciting trend in building design.

“With advanced research on the structural fire performance of innovative building systems, mass timber tall buildings can reach heights comparable to those made of other materials,” Salem said.

He and Hubbard described their product in a research article published in Elsevier, a leading journal in fire safety engineering.

The new connection configuration utilizes two fully concealed, mechanically fastened steel rods in glulam beams – made of glued laminated timber.

It was successfully evaluated in experiments in the Fire Testing and Research Laboratory at Lakehead.

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