Detachable Connections for Circularity of Timber Buildings

Abstract

Connections in timber constructions have high importance, as they are responsible for transferring loads between the different structural parts, achieving sufficient stiffness and ductility for the building. Detachable connections present a new concept in terms of building industry, which is cradle to cradle instead of the ordinary one cradle to grave, and that is attended by maximizing the circle of material reuse and cutting down the building-related material waste. This thesis aims to develop a connection that allows the assembly and disassembly of the timber buildings and enhances the reusability of the timber construction elements in other projects. The development of the connections will be applied explicitly to the multy-story building presented by Derome AB. For understanding the assembling and disassembling process, the theory part presents information about different timber connection types and the performance of various fasteners used in practice. Furthermore, the concept of design for disassembling, known as “DFD” illustrates the disassembling process and how it affects various connections. At the same time, the analysis shows a defined criterion that measures the connection suitability for DFD. It was noticed that the criteria factors with the highest impact on the disassembly of connection are wood reuse, accessibility, ease to be assembled, time, and costs. Moreover, the timber connection, which uses certain fasteners types or additional conjunction parts, was better in DFD. In general, reducing the required tasks’ number for installing or uninstalling the structural elements, and enhancing the capabilities of mechanical fasteners by adding interfaces between connection parts, increase the connection satisfaction for assembling and disassembling.