Urban environments significantly contribute to carbon emissions, both through operational processes and the embodied emissions of construction materials, thus exacerbating climate change. Nevertheless, urban timber structures offer a viable alternative by acting as carbon sinks, capable of sequestering carbon for decades or even centuries. This study develops and applies a methodology to quantify the biogenic carbon stored in Santiago City’s timber-based buildings, conceptualised as a ‘Second Forest’ that transfers and preserves the carbon capture capacity of trees in the built environment. By Felipe Victorero and Waldo Bustamante, Pontifical Catholic University of Chile
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Europe's furniture industry is facing burgeoning pressures that are reinforcing one another. With climate change undermining supplies, regulatory bodies imposing further constraints, and a steep increase in prices, the industry is being drawn into a vicious cycle. This study explores how masterfully embracing the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) tool can help internalize Life Cycle Management (LCM) through receptive organizational learning (OL), ultimately facilitating companies in this industry to unravel this vicious cycle. By Sara Tessitore, Francesco Testa, Vinicio Di Iorio and Fabio Iraldo, Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna
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Timber represents a building material that aligns with the environmental demands on the impact of the construction sector on climate change. The most common engineering solution for modern timber buildings with large spans is glued laminate timber (glulam). This project proposes a tool for a topological optimised geometry generator of structural elements made of glulam that can be used for building a database of topologically optimised glulam beams. In turn, this can be further used to train machine learning models that can embed the topologically optimised geometry and structural behavior information. By Daniela Țăpuși, Andrei-Dan Sabău, Adrian-Alexandru Savu, Ruxandra-Irina Erbașu and Ioana Teodorescu, Technical University of Civil Engineering Bucharest
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High-quality pellets are typically produced from coniferous sawdust. However, achieving comparable quality from alternative feedstocks, such as broadleaf wood, often necessitates pre-treatments or additives. In this study, an alternative statistical approach was developed to evaluate pellet quality in comparison to the constant thresholds reported in the technical standard. By Rodolfo Picchio, Rachele Venanzi, Aurora Bonaudo and Angela Lo Monaco, University of Tuscia, Vincenzo Civitarese, Council for Agricultural Research and Analysis of Agricultural Economics, Francesco Latterini, Polish Academy of Sciences
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Silver birch (Betula pendula) and Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) wood boards were thermally modified with a special focus on increasing dimensional stability and reducing hydrophilicity. The research expands our understanding of the thermally modified (TM) process in a closed system under pressure of nitrogen and its impact on the water absorption capabilities of wood. By Guntis Sosins, Juris Grinins and Prans Brazdausks, Latvian State Institute of Wood Chemistry, Janis Zicans, Riga Technical University
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Brazil stands out as one of the largest manufacturers of MDF in the world. The industries are concentrated in the south and southeast of the country and are primarily based on the use of Pinus and Eucalyptus wood, which are available in extensive planted areas. In the northern region, there is only one MDF industrial plant. Despite an abundance of potential raw materials in this region, there is a lack of studies on native species wood and their industrial waste utilization for MDF production. By Victor Cezar Nepomuceno Ribeiro and Geraldo Bortoletto Junior, Universidade de São Paulo
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A study to evaluate the composition of oriented strand board (OSB) panels and the potential of using a mixture of three Amazonian wood species that have been underutilised by the Brazilian wood industry demonstrates that the studied species have potential for use in the manufacturing of OSB panels. By Diego Lima Aguiar and Victor Hugo Pereira Moutinho, Federal University of Western Pará (UFOPA), Geraldo Bortoletto Júnior, Ivaldo Pontes Jankowsky, Luana Candaten, Debora Klingenberg and Elias Costa de Souza, University of São Paulo (USP), Annie Karoline de Lima Cavalcante, University of Brasília (UnB), and Paula Surdi, Federal University of Viçosa (UFV)
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The remarkable development of timber construction technologies in recent decades has led to an increase in the number of timber buildings worldwide, including multi-storey buildings. It is important for designers to have an overview of existing timber structural systems and their specificities to be able to make the right design decisions during the design process. By Miroslav Premrov and Vesna Žegarac Leskovar, University of Maribor
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Wood is a renewable material that can store biogenic carbon, and waste wood can be recycled to recover bioenergy. The amount of energy recovery from the waste wood can vary depending on the type of wood and its chemical and structural properties. By Shahjadi Hisan Farjana, Olubukola Tokede and Mahmud Ashraf, Deakin University
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Foreign trade belongs among the main sources of economic growth as classical theories of international trade affirm. The aim of the paper is to evaluate the impact of trade balance flows on sectors generating different value-added in the wood-based industries (WBI) of the Czech and Slovak Republics. The multivariate regression method (MLR) was applied to identify the relationship between foreign trade and economic indicators and also specific indicators assessing impacts of foreign trade on the economy of wood-based industries. By Andrea Janáková Sujová and Katarína Marcineková, Technical University in Zvolen, Václav Kupčák, Mendel University in Brno
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