The Possibility to Use Pine Timber Pieces with Small Size in the Production of Glulam Beams

Abstract

Engineered wood products, such as glulam beams, attract much attention from the building industry in recent years. Therefore, there is a constant necessity to seek new models of structural beams, which assume the use of outsized sawn wood pieces as an alternative for the standard construction timber. Three variants of glulam beams, composed of the main yield and side boards arranged in various structures, were proposed. Moreover, the usefulness of wedge-jointed, small-sized timber pieces was also investigated. The manufactured beams were tested, in terms of their mechanical properties, such as bending strength, elastic energy, modulus of elasticity, and resilience. The outcomes have shown that the beams manufactured using wedge-bonded timber of lower grade do not deviate considerably from beams produced from homogeneous lamellas. Furthermore, the results of modulus of elasticity, in the case of the three-layered beams composed of both small-sized non-homogenous main yield and side boards, exceeded the requirements from EN 14080. It allowed us to classify the obtained materials as GL 32c, which is the highest grade specified within the standard.