Learning objectives

Students will be able to use wood as a building material and its derived products appropriately in the construction industry and will be aware of possible problems caused by the hygroscopic, anisotropic, heterogeneous and biological properties of wood. They have developed methods to deal with the scattering properties of wood in construction practice. Their questioning and critical thinking skills with regard to well-executed, robust and reliable timber construction details are trained. Based on their understanding of materials, students can analyze and evaluate the material-specific quality of construction details. They can name typical load-bearing structures for building construction and the construction and connecting elements required for their manufacture. They will be able to describe the load-bearing effect of structures and their individual elements as well as accurately model and mathematically represent them. They can identify the advantages and disadvantages of structures and are able to work out design alternatives under given boundary conditions, evaluate these and, based on this, decide on sensible design and construction solutions. Students will be able to describe the most important damage scenarios and their causes. They are able to prevent damage through creativity, care and multi-layered networked thinking when designing and calculating load-bearing structures and thus design reliable and durable structures.

Lecture content

- Wood anatomy, wood characteristics, physics of wood and durability
- Wood drying and strength grading
- Solid wood, glued laminated timber, cross laminated timber, wood-based panels, innovative wood products
- Classification of damage independent of building material
- Damage and causes specific to timber construction
- Consequences and recommendations for material-compatible timber constructions

Lecture notes

Available on ILIAS (Access for KIT students only).