Adept Consulting(UK)Ltd have already accumulated significant experience in the design and specification of these innovative building components called cross laminated timber structures.
CLT has several names, including X-LAM and Mass Timber, influenced heavily by Europe, Scandinavia, and North America where the product is traditionally manufactured as it is local to the raw material resource.
The product is solid engineered softwood timber, formed in a similar way to that of Glulam Timber by stacking layers (known as lamellas) usually spruce, at 90◦ to the layer below and they are subsequently glued/bonded between each layer to create a two-way spanning panel, that can be up to 24m in length and 2.95m wide, thus creating a structural wall, floor or roof panel, which is used on structures up to 25 storeys (not currently in the UK, due to Government guidance post Grenfell).
In comparison to conventional timber construction products CLT offers entirely new options when it comes to load transfer. The bonded layers are then machined to high accuracy using CNC machine technology.
Compliance
All CLT product should be compliant with either FSC or PEFC (more commonly the latter) when used within UK construction, thus ensuring it is a sustainable resource from correctly managed forests.
CLT carries high axial load capacity, due to large bearing area, high shear strength from horizontal loading, slim floor construction is possible, and it offers significant reduction in self weight.
The Benefits
The benefits during construction are numerous – from reduced loading on foundations and infrastructure services, to impressive thermal, acoustic and airtightness performance over more traditional materials, but most importantly, a CLT construction solution provides cost and programme certainty.
Here at Adept Co we have been working on projects incorporating CLT for many years, the technical, aesthetic and commercially efficient solutions that have been built are impressive to say the least, encompassing almost all common market sectors, we often also design hybrid solutions including CLT.
