History and Background of Timber Column

Wood is one of the earliest building materials,and as such its use often has been based more on
tradition than principles of engineering. How ever,the structural use of wood and wood-based
materials has increased steadily in recent times.
While it has been clearly established what heavy timber construction is, that is to say its design
features and structural requirements have been transcribed, it is perti-nent to explain how and
why the construction type came into being. The origins of heavy timber construction are a multi-
dimensional tale, an extraordinary saga that parallels the very history of the United States itself.
The construction type truly manifested itself as the physical embodiment of the nation’s rise
from a veritable small-scale post-colonial status to undisputable industrial juggernaut.

In 1835, an American building revolution took place in the form of the standard-ization of heavy
timber construction. Leading up to that historic year, a number of fires had utterly decimated
New Englan d’s textile mills, with flames routinely prey-ing on the highly combustible contents
and relatively lightweight construction of said structures. So commonplace were the destructive
blazes that insurance compa-nies refused to insure mills and factories, with the Monmouth
Mutual Fire Insurance Company flatly stating, “Mills and Factories are rejected altogether....” In
the wake of these circumstances, a group of Rhode Island mill owners formed an orga-nization
which later became known as the Associated Factory Mutual Fire Insurance Companies and
changed American architecture forever.
Their summit in 1835 led to a standardized design for mill construction. The recommended
design harnessed both the available resources, but utilized elements known for their proven fire-
resistant qualities and for permanence. With the official launch of the heavy timber construction
type, it did not take long for the design to find widespread use in a variety of industries and
occupancy types. Over the type’s early years, the original recommended design was adjusted as
necessary when issues arose that required a deviation in order to increase performance. By 1840,
it appears that the heavy timber construction type had been truly stan-dardized and streamlined.

As the nineteenth century progressed, so too did heavy timber’s gradual migra-tion southward.
One of the great pockets of East Coast heavy timber construction was Paterson, New Jersey.
Here, most of the mill and industrial heavy timber build-ings were of heavy timber construction
expressly built for utility rather than ele-gance. These buildings are considerably more plain than
those existing in other localities. Paterson embodies the region’s adherence to the construction
type and a proven belief in the type’s performance. In 1871, a fire ripped through the city’s
Franklin Mill . Initial news reports stated that the fire had ostensibly been burning for quite some
time before it was discovered, allowing for the development of quite an inferno. However, the
blaze was kept to one wing of the mill, and its nearby exposure, the Hope Mill , was able to
withstand the radiant heat.

Toward the middle of the nineteenth century, heavy timber construction made its way into the
American South. The patterns of heavy timber proliferation throughout the South tend to, like the
North, follow its general economic development timeline. The South as a whole did not really
start dramatically investing in its economy, that is to say by far its most dominant industry of
cotton, until about 1840. In the short win-dow between 1840 and 1860, the South had doubled its
capital investment in cotton manufacturing. Such a dramatic increase by virtue necessitated a
resultant increase in infrastructure. To that end, heavy timber made its way through the American
South. To be certain, cotton has often caught the eye of many historians as the dominant industry
of the American South, particularly the Antebellum South; however, in the second quarter of the
nineteenth century, tobacco became a powerful industry in its own right, notably in Virginia and
North Carolina. Understandably, the American C ivil War and resultant Reconstruction period
placed a significant damper on build-ing construction in general. However, in North Carolina,
the city of Durham inparticular, industry and new construction exploded in the 1870s. Cigarettes
had become quite popular and the tobacco-producing regions such as Durham pros-pered.
A striking example of heavy timber construction’s application in the South and its adaptation to
tobacco production can be seen in Durham’s American Tobacco Company Manufacturin g Plant.
In this massive complex, which saw almost continual additions between 1874 and 1954, 30
buildings are heavy timber, and while generally built in a simple utilitarian style, in later years
newer buildings were adorned with decorative brickwork. While heavy timber construction
generally seems to have followed a rather linear trajectory during the early years of its existence,
it appears to have abandoned that trend by the middle of the nineteenth century. While it cannot
be definitely ascer-tained as to why heavy timber construction’s spread westward arguably
progressed significantly faster than it did into the southern reaches of the United States, it can,
however, be clearly seen that heavy timber was establishing itself in force in the Midwest, some
1,500 miles from the source, at around the same time it became popular in the South.

Types of Timber Column

The term column is typically considered to mean any compression member, including
compressive members in trusses and posts as well as traditional columns. Three basic types of
wood columns as illustrated in Figure 9.5 are
(1) simple solid or traditional columns, which are single members such as sawn lumber,
posts, timbers, poles, glued laminated timber, etc.;
(2) spaced columns, which are two or more parallel single members separated at specific
locations along their length by blocking andrigidly tied together at their ends; and
(3) built-up columns, which consist of two or more members joined together by
mechanical fasteners such that the assembly acts as a single unit.

Depending on the relative dimensions of the columnas defined by the slenderness ratio,the
design of wood columns is limited by the material’s stiffness and strength parallel to the grain.
The slenderness ratio is defined as the ratio of the effective length of the column,
le, to the least radius of gyration,r= √I/A where I= moment of inertia of the cross-section about
the weak axis and A= cross-sectional area. The effective length is defined by le= Kel,where
Ke= effective length factor or buckling length coefficient and l= unbraced length of the column.
The unbraced length,l,is measured as center to center distance between lateral supports. Ke is
dependent on the column end support conditions and on whether sidesway is allowed or
restrained.
1. Solid Columns

The basic design equation for an axially loaded member as given by the LRFD Specification
[5]is given as
Pu < ƛǾcPc
Where Pu= the compression force due to factored loads

ƛ=time effects factor corresponding to the load combination under consideration

Ǿc=esistance factor for compression=0.90
Pc=adjusted compression resistance parallel to the grain.
2. Spaced Columns
Spaced columns consist of two or more parallel single members separated at specific locations
along their length by blocking and rigidly tied together at their ends. As defined in
L1=overall length in the spaced column direction,L2=overall length in the solid column
direction,L3=largest distance from the centroid of an end block to the center of the mid-length
spacer,Lce=distance from the centroid of end block connectors to the nearer column
end,d1=width of individual components in the spaced column direction, and
d2=width of individual components in the solid column direction. Typically, the individual
components of a spaced column are considered to act individually in the direction of the wide
face of the members. The blocking, however, effectively reduces the unbraced length in the weak
direction. Therefore, the following L=d ratios are imposed
on spaced columns:
1. In the spaced column direction: L1/d1< 80
L3/d1< 40
2. In the Solid Column direction: L2/d2< 50
Depending on the length Lce relative to L1, one of two effective length factors can be assumed
for design in the spaced column direction. If sidesway is not allowed and Lce < 0.05 L1, then the
effective length factor is assumed as Ke=0.63 ; or if there is no sidesway and
0.05 L1< Lce<0.10 L1,then assume Ke =0.53. For columns with sidesway in the spaced column
direction, an effective length factor greater than unity is determined as given in Table 9.7

3 .Built-Up Columns
Built-up columns consist of two or more members joined together by mechanical fasteners such
that the assembly acts as a single unit. Conservatively, the capacity of a built-up member can be
taken as the sum of resistances of the individual components. Conversely, if information
regarding the rigidity and overall effectiveness of the fasteners is available, the designer can
incorporate such information into the analysis and take advantage of the composite action
provided by the fasteners; however, no codified procedures are available for the design of built-
up columns. In either case, the fasteners must be designed appropriately to resist the imposed
shear and tension forces (see Section9.8 for fastener design).

References
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BURI H., WEINAND Y.,
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Timber Rib Shells, WCTE Portland USA, 2006,
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NATTERER J., WEINAND Y.,
Modeling of Multi-Layer Beam with Inter-Layer Slips,
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