Altair Case Studies Designing for Sustainability: Reducing Carbon Footprint with Embedded Carbon for Large Scale, Hybrid Timber Structures

	Designing for Sustainability: Reducing Carbon Footprint with Embedded Carbon for Large Scale, Hybrid Timber Structures Altair

Designing for Sustainability: Reducing Carbon Footprint with Embedded Carbon for Large Scale, Hybrid Timber Structures

Altair

Technology Category	Drones - VTOL & VTOL Hybrid Drones Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - Hybrid Cloud
Applicable Industries	Buildings Construction & Infrastructure
Applicable Functions	Product Research & Development
Use Cases	Smart Campus Structural Health Monitoring
Challenge	Bush Bohlman & Partners, a structural engineering design firm, was tasked with the structural analysis and timber design for the British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT) student plaza. The structure was to serve as a pedestrian and public transport user gateway for the institute, and needed to establish a strong campus identity with a biophilic design and demonstrable support for sustainable building practices. The hybrid mass timber structure consisted of a Cross-Laminated Timber (CLT) canopy, CLT columns, and steel columns. The pedestrian comfort walkway needed to meet sustainability, reliability, and structural design requirements. The structure involved a pitched roof, skylight openings in the roof CLT panels, and supporting columns constructed from CLT and hollow structural steel. The engineers needed to maintain a current structural model, apply local timber design codes, and analyze the complex two-way bending behaviour of the cantilevering roof panels and irregular column layout. Read More
About Customer	Bush Bohlman & Partners is a Vancouver, Canada based structural engineering design firm known for their creative expertise in major engineering projects in Western Canada. Their portfolio includes hospitals, university campus buildings, government buildings, seismic retrofits, mass timber, and tall wood buildings. They are early adopters of mass timber structures and have extensive wood design experience to handle projects requiring the unique technical challenges faced when designing with engineered wood. Read More
Solution	The engineers chose to use S-TIMBER to model and analyze the 3D structure. Altair collaborated with Bush Bohlman to ensure the correct modeling parameters were applied while simulating the structure. S-TIMBER was able to perform a hybrid analysis of the timber and steel elements in one operation and code-check the timber elements for code compliance. Using S-TIMBER’s built-in and customizable material databases allowed for a quick definition of the materials conforming to the proprietary CLT required. Modeling automation allowed for easier responses to structural changes resulting from design revisions. With the help of Altair’s technical support team, the engineers were able to overcome some technical design challenges using S-TIMBER strip line integration capabilities to extract the structural demands at junctions and supporting columns to design the timber connections and supports further. Read More Log in to view content
Contents

Technology Category

Drones - VTOL & VTOL Hybrid Drones

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - Hybrid Cloud

Applicable Industries

Buildings

Construction & Infrastructure

Applicable Functions

Product Research & Development

Use Cases

Smart Campus

Structural Health Monitoring

Challenge

Bush Bohlman & Partners, a structural engineering design firm, was tasked with the structural analysis and timber design for the British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT) student plaza. The structure was to serve as a pedestrian and public transport user gateway for the institute, and needed to establish a strong campus identity with a biophilic design and demonstrable support for sustainable building practices. The hybrid mass timber structure consisted of a Cross-Laminated Timber (CLT) canopy, CLT columns, and steel columns. The pedestrian comfort walkway needed to meet sustainability, reliability, and structural design requirements. The structure involved a pitched roof, skylight openings in the roof CLT panels, and supporting columns constructed from CLT and hollow structural steel. The engineers needed to maintain a current structural model, apply local timber design codes, and analyze the complex two-way bending behaviour of the cantilevering roof panels and irregular column layout.

About Customer

Bush Bohlman & Partners is a Vancouver, Canada based structural engineering design firm known for their creative expertise in major engineering projects in Western Canada. Their portfolio includes hospitals, university campus buildings, government buildings, seismic retrofits, mass timber, and tall wood buildings. They are early adopters of mass timber structures and have extensive wood design experience to handle projects requiring the unique technical challenges faced when designing with engineered wood.

Solution

The engineers chose to use S-TIMBER to model and analyze the 3D structure. Altair collaborated with Bush Bohlman to ensure the correct modeling parameters were applied while simulating the structure. S-TIMBER was able to perform a hybrid analysis of the timber and steel elements in one operation and code-check the timber elements for code compliance. Using S-TIMBER’s built-in and customizable material databases allowed for a quick definition of the materials conforming to the proprietary CLT required. Modeling automation allowed for easier responses to structural changes resulting from design revisions. With the help of Altair’s technical support team, the engineers were able to overcome some technical design challenges using S-TIMBER strip line integration capabilities to extract the structural demands at junctions and supporting columns to design the timber connections and supports further.

Impact #1	By using S-TIMBER, the engineers were able to simulate the complex two-way bending behaviour of the cantilevering roof panels and asymmetrical column layout. This allowed for changes to be analyzed and re-designed, without the need to manually design individual timber and steel elements. S-TIMBER’s design reports presented the design calculations concisely, yet transparently, for faster and easier reviews. A 3D visualization of the finished model was available for sharing with project partners. The engineers could also export the final model into a CAD compliant format for additional postprocessing to provide the necessary drawings for fabrication purposes.

Impact #1

By using S-TIMBER, the engineers were able to simulate the complex two-way bending behaviour of the cantilevering roof panels and asymmetrical column layout. This allowed for changes to be analyzed and re-designed, without the need to manually design individual timber and steel elements. S-TIMBER’s design reports presented the design calculations concisely, yet transparently, for faster and easier reviews. A 3D visualization of the finished model was available for sharing with project partners. The engineers could also export the final model into a CAD compliant format for additional postprocessing to provide the necessary drawings for fabrication purposes.

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Overview

Designing for Sustainability: Reducing Carbon Footprint with Embedded Carbon for Large Scale, Hybrid Timber Structures

Operational Impact