Displacing Concrete in the Modern Infrastructure: Steel-Timber Hybrid Construction

Abstract

The research at hand takes a theoretical approach to proposing a potential solution to one of the construction industry’s most crippling issues: the overuse of environmentally detrimental materials, like concrete. Concrete is among the world’s leaders in having the largest atmospheric carbon footprint each year through its fundamental necessity for high energy processes like mining, blast furnace heating, and calcination. Though an incredible building material, proved time and time again, concrete is continuously contributing to environmental issues like global warming on a significant scale. This research aims to present several sets of prototype designs which accentuate the use of cross-laminated timber (CLT) floor slabs as a potential replacement for concrete slabs in multistory buildings. Baseline and CLT prototypes were designed and assessed for both 30’ x 30’ and 60’ x 60’ floorplates with the hopes that CLT panels could be proven as structurally proficient and an environmentally sustainable substitute for the concrete used in the floor slabs of multistory structures. Our research suggests that by integrating steel-timber hybrid construction into projects, and replacing concrete floor slabs with CLT panels, a significant amount of environmental savings can be obtained. By simply displacing the required volume of concrete compulsory for standard floor slab construction, and proposing an alternative design process which utilizes CLT, this research contributes to the discussion about how we can make our construction industry greener and more conscious of careless environmental impacts.