dc.description.abstract | Most of today’s industrial buildings in Norway are built with a steel framework and sandwich elements as facade. There appears to be a lot of speculation as to whether changing out the main traditional building materials with greener and more environmentally friendly materials would actually make a significant difference with regards to CO2-emissions.
Objective
We wish, in this assignment, to decide what environmental consequences a change as described above will constitute, and to which extent we are able to replace the steel framework without reducing the building’s architectural expression or value in practice. We will also consider to what degree this is possible with respect to transport and installation.
Method
We will start off with calculating the structural system in glued laminated timber as far as it goes. Then we will decide what dimensions the trusses, beams and columns will have, and from this information calculate the volume of wood compared to the steel and consider the CO2-footprint from these two options.
Result
We have come to the result that it is possible to replace the steel framework with glued laminated timber without affecting the architectural expression or value in use. Whether the change in CO2-emissions would be significant or not depends on what perspective you have. In our analysis we concluded that in comparison with Norway’s annual CO2-emissions it could have a significant positive impact if the majority of industrial buildings were built as described. In that case it would make out about 1 % of Norway’s total annual CO2-emissions. | |