Wood in Architecture

Wood as a building material has had a revival, which is due to a lot of factors. It is partly since as a result of cronic shortage of wood cemented/ laminated frames made of less valuable timber and frames with hardwood pins/dowels has come to the front. On the other hand, because of the spread of modern fuels using food as a fuel has decreased. Nowadays buildings have become more and more mannered because of the excessive use of plastic, so a new demand has risen for structuring the biulding from natural materials , like ceramics,stone and wood. The demand to cover big spaces, also contributed to the usage of wooden consoles due to their little bulk, esthetic appearance and its easy construction.
    In our days the experts will approve sustainable development. It is another factor for which wood as stock is impor¬tant as it is renewable, environmentally friendly, and as a source of energy it meets the strict requirements of sustain¬able development.

Frames with hardwood pins

Paratelly with evolving and spreading of the 'engineering frames' metal bonding elements also dispersed. Meanwhile it was also proven that metals having a lot of favourable qualities, also have some unflattering ones,and they make the ef¬ficiency of the wooden building material worse. The bonding elements made of metal always have worse fireproofness threshold limit than the wooden ones, so in the case of fire they will get destroyed sooner. They form a heat bridge (?), cause moisture condensaion, and lessen the favourable qualities of wooden frames. In some cases they are a significant overload for the structure, they need special corrosion protection, which makes their usage more expensive. The most uptodate developments study and suppport the usage of the wood in more excessive ways. Frames with hardwood pins are one of the widely spread representations of them.
    The most uptodate developments study and suppport the usage of the wood in more excessive ways. Frames with hardwood pins are one of the widely spread representations of them.
The main qualities of the frames are:

• They work as planar consols, where we establish the connecion between the elements with attle pins, making sure the homogenity of the structure
• Statically we can completely make use of the used material, we can apply the calculated cross-sections
• The production usually happens in factories, at a standard quality, and it takes a shorter time
• They can be prefabricated, which makes the time the assembly needs on the spot shorter
• Placing of the consols happens with a crane
• Using them makes it possible to cover big spans without using intervening consols (using spaces freely)

Research and development

EP-FARM GP. situated at V6s6rosnameny is the leading manufacturer of the hardwood-stud structures in Hungary. The company by having a nearly decade experiences with production, installation and construction offer a wide range of tim¬ber structure types for the partners.Nowadays, the application of the traditional timber structures is "overshadowed" by the spreading of the steel and/or reinforced or prestressed concrete structures. It can partly be explained that large span requires large timber cross sections, which does not appear firstly to be an economic solution. According to our idea attitude change is needed in the design of timber structures! Truss girder made of timber with relatively small cross sections can effectively be used for large spans. Construction works, time and cost can effectively be reduced by the use of such prefabricated timber trusses. These benefits make the application of such structure to be economic! Furthermore, the rods of the truss can be connected by the use of hardwood stud which is an additional advantage resulting a homogeneous structure. On this way all the steel or other metallic components can be eliminated from the structure, so it can be used in high aggressive environmental conditions. Currently, modelling and design of hardwood dowel type connections are not discussed in the existing standards.
    In order to solve such a lack of standardization, the problem is examined by EP-FARM Gp. in cooperation with the Department of Civil Engineering University of Debrecen in the frame of a research development agreement.