Experimental investigation and numerical modelling of mechanical properties of CLTs

© 2019 Taylor & Francis Group, London, UK. Cross laminated timber (CLT) has recently been experiencing wider use in mid-rise mass timber construction. The structural response of CLT heavily relies on the type of timber used in manufacturing and this can vary significantly based on the original source for this naturally grown raw material. Whilst experimental evidence is always costly and unavoidable to develop appropriate understandings for all structural responses, the need for developing reliable numerical models is required to tackle wider variety of timber specimens. In contrast to typical construction materials such as steel and concrete, which can be easily modelled using numerous commercial finite element (FE) software by selecting suitable constitutive law and failure criterion from existing material library, numerical modelling of timber has never been straightforward. In the current study, a user material subroutine (UMAT) will be used for modelling the non-linear behaviour of timber. Based on experimental tests, extended parametric analysis on out-of-plane CLT panels have been investigated by calibrated models.