Abstract

Engineered timber is becoming popular in multi- storey constructions owing to multiple reasons such as sustainability, constructability, aesthetic and material saving. The more the heights of timber buildings increase, the more acute the risk of disproportionate collapse. Disproportionate collapse is a structural collapse in which there is a pronounced disproportion between the initial cause and its ensuing collapse. The majority of design frameworks focus on concrete and steel structures and, thus, design guidance for timber structures against disproportionate collapse is lacking. In addition, these existing guidelines may not be effective in certain cases to arrest collapse. Therefore, this project aims to provide guidance on the design of multi-storey timber buildings against disproportionate collapse by assessing the performance of timber connections and timber subframes/structures. This talk will introduce the concepts of disproportionate collapse, their challenges when applying to timber post-and-beam buildings and how this project provides the knowledge required to develop design guidelines against disproportionate collapse.