Structural Analysis and Design of Sustainable Cross-Laminated Timber Foundation Walls

There is widespread enthusiasm toward utilizing mass timber panels (MTP), mainly cross-laminated timber (CLT), in construction, including for the basements of low-rise buildings. CLT is deemed a sustainable alternative to the widely used concrete foundation walls due to significant advantages such as less vulnerability to cracking due to uneven load distribution and presence of concentrated loads, higher thermal resistance, less construction time due to whole-wall prefabrication and installation, and less detrimental environmental effects. This study is part of an extensive research program aimed at developing the structural analysis and design concepts and methodology for constructing house foundation walls using MTPs, focusing on the usage of CLT. After comparison of CLT basements with their equivalent concrete ones from the sustainability point of view, and a brief discussion on geotechnical and hygrothermal considerations, the main theme of the article includes the structural analysis and design methodology, requirements, and the procedure to achieve a reliable and efficient design of a CLT basement. A simplified analysis procedure to design the laminate thicknesses and the number of layers in CLT foundation walls for different scenarios considering various variables such as soil type and backfill height is discussed, and results in the form of pre-engineered design tables are provided. The findings of this study demonstrate that, depending on the soil type and backfill height, 3–7-ply CLT panels would be needed for net wall heights of up to 3 m. Additionally, advanced finite element analyses are performed on sample architypes to validate the simplified analysis procedure used for design. It is shown that the proposed analysis procedure and the pre-engineered tables produce conservative and efficient results.

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