Bemessung von Gebäuden in Brettsperrholzbauweise unter Erdbebenbeanspruchung

Design of CLT buildings under seismic actions Cross‐Laminated‐Timber (CLT) is an engineered wood product that have been manufactured in Europe for more than ten years, and widely used throughout the continent, with good results in terms of structural behavior, building speed and quality housing. In CLT buildings, resistance to horizontal actions – wind and earthquakes – is entrusted to the wall panel and to metal connection systems to ensure the transfer of shear actions at the base of the wall and the tension actions causing the wall's rocking behavior. Moreover, metal connection systems are systematically adopted for joining the vertical and horizontal diaphragms to ensure a „box like” behavior. This paper illustrates the basic concept of the design under lateral load actions of CLT buildings, with special emphasis to the role of the connections systems, and reports some results of recent research projects, carried out at the University of Trento, by mean both theoretical and experimental investigations. On the basis of this research work accomplished in recent years, a process of technology transfer between research and practice resulted in the development of a software for the design of CLT multi‐storey buildings.     

Luftionen in Gebäuden – elektroionisches Mikroklima

Air ionization and indoor climate. Positive and negative ions are produced in the air by the impact of the electric field between earth and ionosphere, by UV and cosmic radiation and by so called Lenard effect. The created electrically charged particles (ions) are not stable and join together with neutral atoms and molecules into the complexes of 10 to 30 molecules being already stable and called “lightweight ions” or “aeroions”. In an interior the aeroion creation is impacted by the external walls (classic materials as wood and bricks are optimal), by air‐handling systems (aeroions are discharged at the metal parts of the system), by indoor equipment (e.g., raw wood without surface finish neutralizes a considerable aeroion quantity by its surface) and by human activities: just one smoked cigarette liquidates practically all aeroions in the room. The aeroions are the catalyzers of human body biochemical reactions and affects the nervous system total condition. Finally principles of the most often used ionizers are presented, especially hydrodynamic and with corona charge.     

Zuverlässigkeit von Mauerwerk aus großformatigen Steinen

Reliability of masonry consisting of large sized units. Within the scope of the harmonisation of the European design codes the partial safety concept has been recommended also for masonry structures. This requires the values of the partial safety factors to be discussed. Whereas for steel and concrete structures a large amount of studies have been conducted, this is not the case for masonry structures. This explains the large scatter of the partial safety factors suggested for the resistance side for the design unreinforced masonry in international codes. In this paper, the reliability of unreinforced masonry walls under compression made of large sized units will be analysed. A suggestion for optimized partial safety factors will be given.