Fire Performance of Mass Timber: Future of building and construction

After over a century of building the same way with concrete and steel, the architects, designers, builders are looking towards an alternative material to build with. A few key concerns are prompting this shift. The biggest one is the sustainability / environmental impact of how and what we build with.

The other concern is to be able to construct faster and efficient buildings. In the last couple of decades, a longforgotten material has made a comeback in a new form. Timber has been re-invented as Mass Timber. Mass timber is a term that refers to engineered wood products that are made by laminating, gluing or fastening smaller pieces of wood together to form larger structural elements.

Mass timber has been gaining popularity in the building and construction industry in recent years, especially in Europe and North America, due to its environmental, economic and aesthetic benefits.

Mass timber can reduce the carbon footprint of buildings by storing carbon in the wood, avoiding the emissions from producing and transporting concrete and steel, and enabling faster and more efficient construction processes.

Mass timber can also lower the cost of construction by reducing the need for heavy equipment, scaffolding, formwork and labour. It can also create attractive and comfortable spaces with natural light, warmth, and texture.

All this has led to more and more architects looking at Mass Timber as a preferred material to do various types of buildings, such as residential, commercial, institutional, industrial and mixed-use. Mass timber can be used as a complementary material to concrete and steel, or as a primary material for the entire structure.

The most common concern, that most people have with using timber for construction is the perception that wood and fire go hand in hand. How does one address the issue of wood buildings being extremely susceptible to fire? Let’s try to demystify the behaviour of wood subjected to fire and how it is an exceptional material when it comes to withstanding fire.

When we compare how the three common building materials fairs when subjected to high temperature fire, it comes as a surprise, but mass timber outperforms steel and concrete in terms of retaining it structural strength. This may not sound believable, but one needs to understand the behaviour of these materials when subjected to high temperatures.

Steel starts to lose its structural strengths at around 220°C and is at half its strength at around 340°C. Similarly concrete starts to disintegrate at around 425°C and losses about half its strength at around 650°C. It performs much better as compared to steel because it takes quiet some time for the whole mass to reach catastrophic temperature but bizarre phenomenon like