CSCE Annual Conference

Growing with youth – Croître avec les jeunes

Laval (Greater Montreal)

June 12 - 15, 2019

SIMULATION-BASED BUILDING PERFORMANCE COMPARISON

BETWEEN CLT-CONCRETE HYBRID, CLT, AND REINFORCED CONCRETE
STRUCTURES IN CANADA

Yin, Li1
1 Concordia university, Canada
1 [email protected]

Bruno, Lee2
2 Concordia university, Canada
2 [email protected]

Abstract: With the emphasis on climate change and environmental issues, timber has become a building
material that can compete with steel and concrete. One of the latest achievements in timber construction is
the CLT hybrid system, which combines engineered timber with concrete. The CLT hybrid system is
increasingly popular because of the complex shapes that can be achieved. Compared to a traditional
reinforced concrete building, the hybrid system can reduce the carbon emissions, the fast construction
duration, as well, create a safer structure system. Compared to a timber building, the hybrid system has
higher fire safety rating and better thermal comfort. However, there is not enough quantitative research
discussing the difference of performance between different structural systems. In this paper, building
performance simulation is used to evaluate the energy consumption and peak load of the building with
different structural systems. A typical residential building was selected as the case study. First, the structural
design was applied for the different type of constructions according to the national building code, and then
building performance simulation was applied to evaluate the energy performance in different locations in
Canada. The conclusions were found to vary for the different structural systems and locations in Canada.

1 INTRODUCTION

In 2015, the National Building Code (NBC) permitted to extend the limit of wood construction from four-
storey to six-storey for residential and business/personal services. The guide outlines the technical
principles required to design and construct wooden buildings up to 12 storeys using mass timber (Veilleux,
2015). To achieve this level, mass timber construction materials such as Cross Laminated Timber (CLT)
must be applied instead of light framing construction. Cross laminated timber is a new type of engineering
wood. It has three or more gluing layers of solid sawn lumber. Each layer is oriented perpendicular to
adjacent -layers and glued on the wide faces. CLT can be used for shear wall, roof panel, and floor panel.
In the 1970s the CLT was first proposed, and the first manufacturer of modern CLT panels in the late 1980s
was established in Europe (Brandner,2016). In the 1990s, CLT was used as building materials, and the first
CLT construction was built in Switzerland. Currently, CLT is developing rapidly in Europe and North
America, and the concept of CLT have gradually accepted by the market. The high strength of CLT make
it an effective substitute for steel and cement for new construction project. In order to explore the full
potential, some researches have combined CLT with concrete.
Concrete can be integrated with CLT in different format. Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) conducted a
conceptual design study utilizing a timber/concrete hybrid system (Baker, 2014). The proposed system is
called “Concrete Jointed Timber Frame”. This system relies primarily on mass-timber for the main structural
elements, with supplementary reinforced concrete at the connecting joints.

Figure 1. Typical Floor Diagram proposed by SOM (Baker, 2014)

The University of British Columbia (UBC) successfully built one of the tallest timber-based hybrid buildings
in the world. Except the two concrete core and foundation, the rest system is comprised of CLT floors,
Glulam columns (Tannert, 2017).

Figure 2. Hybrid structural system of UBC building (Tannert, 2017)

These researches and projects highlight the benefits of the composite system. However, there is lack of
research discussing the energy performance of this new type of building. In this research, three structural
systems are selected for comparison including the CLT, CLT concrete hybrid, reinforcement concrete. The
CLT system consists of CLT floor and glulam columns. The concrete system consists of beamless flat slab
and concrete column. The CLT-concrete system consists of CLT floor panel with concrete topping and
glulam column. Firstly, the structural design are performed to keep the three systems with same structural
capacity. Then the building performance simulation program Energyplus is applied to evaluate the energy
performance of these three system.

2 Methodology

In order to compare the energy performance between different structural systems, firstly the structural
design loop is performed to make sure all the three structural systems meet the same level of structural
performance as shown in figure 3. Due to the scope of this study, only the vertical loads are considered.
The structural design loads are same for the three structural systems. The criteria is defined as the structural
capacity reaching 95% of the load demand which is the combination of different loads. The concrete slab
thickness can be continuous variable for design loop, however the CLT is discrete variable due to the fixed
thickness of each lawyer. The deflection and vibration indicator are calculated as design constrain
according to National building code. The concrete structural analysis is done by Sap2000 and the CLT and
CLT-concrete system structural analysis are done by excel following the analysis steps according to the
CLT design manual Canadian version. When one structural system meets all the criteria, the parameters
like floor slab thickness are transferred to building an energy model in Energyplus. All the other parameters
except the structural systems are kept as same for the models like insulation and infiltration.

Initial design

Structural
analysis

No, revise the input Structural

design

Meet the
criteria

Yes
Export
value to
Energyplus

Post-
processing

End

Figure 3. Integrated building performance evaluation workflow

Energyplus is a building energy simulation engine developed by the US Department of Energy (DOE) and
the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). Energyplus is is free, open-source, and can be
integrated with optimization. In this study, the heating/cooling load and annual heating/cooling energy
consumption are selected as the performance indicators to evaluate the building performance.

3 Case study

3.1 Structural design loop results

In this study, a 10-storey DOE benchmark residential building is selected as reference as shown in figure
4. The floor layout like the position of columns are kept same for the three structural systems as shown in
figure 5. The results of structural design loop are shown in Table 1.

Figure 4. 10-storey residential building

Figure 5. The structural system for the reference building

 Table 1. The structural design loop results

System Floor slab/roof

Concrete 249mm C30 concrete

CLT 244mm 7 lawyer CLT floor panel

CLT-concrete 244mm CLT +10mm concrete

3.2 Energy simulation results

After the structural design, three Energyplus models are built for Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver. First
the heating and cooling loads of the 6th floor south and north apartment are chosen to evaluate the peak
load of the three buildings.

Zone cooling (Montreal) Zone heating (Montreal)

South apartment North apartment South apartment North apartment
2500 2000

2000 Unit (W) 1500

1500
Unit (W)

1000
1000
500
500

0 0
hybrid concrete CLT hybrid concrete CLT
South apartment 1913.9 1712.96 2049.57 South apartment 1593.69 1584.67 1605.12
North apartment 1356.18 1307.74 1425.44 North apartment 1594.68 1585.73 1606.1

Figure 6. Peak loads for Montreal

It can be observed from figure 6 that: for cooling load, the south apartment in the CLT building is around
19.7% more than concrete building, and the hybrid building is 11.7% more than concrete building. The
north apartment in the CLT building is around 3.7% more than concrete building, and the hybrid building
is 9% more than concrete building. For the heating load there is no significant different between different
structural system for either south or north apartment.

Zone cooling (Toronto) Zone heating (Toronto)

2500
South apartment North apartment South apartment North apartment
1600
2000 1400
Unit (W)

1200
Unit (W)

1500 1000
800
1000 600
400
500 200
0
hybrid concrete CLT
0
hybrid concrete CLT South apartment 1416.59 1400.87 1421.61
South apartment 1964.26 1684.8 1992.61 North apartment 1433.21 1411.95 1432.6
North apartment 1503.86 1341.13 1463.17

Figure 7. Peak loads for Toronto

It can be observed from figure 7 that: for cooling load, the south apartment in the CLT building is around
18.3% more than concrete building, and the hybrid building is 16.6% more than concrete building. The
north apartment in the CLT building is around 9% more than concrete building, and the hybrid building is
12% more than concrete building. For the heating load there is no significant different between different
structural system for either south or north apartment.

Zone cooling (Vancouver) Zone heating (Vancouver)

3000 740
South apartment North apartment South apartment North apartment

2500 735
730
Unit (W)

Unit (W)
2000
725
1500 720
715
1000
710
500
705

0 700
hybrid concrete CLT hybrid concrete CLT
South apartment 2300 1946.84 2484.91 South apartment 725.57 712.86 734.96
North apartment 1009 972.11 1064.12 North apartment 726.48 713.81 735.86

Figure 8. Peak loads for Vancouver

It can be observed from figure 8 that: for cooling load, the south apartment in the CLT building is around
27.6% more than concrete building, and the hybrid building is 18.1% more than concrete building. The
north apartment in the CLT building is around 9.4% more than concrete building, and the hybrid building
is 3.8% more than concrete building. For the heating load there is no significant different between
different structural system for either south or north apartment.

The total HVAC energy consumption of the buildings for the three cities are listed in table 2. For Montreal,
the hybrid and CLT consume 2% and 3.5% energy more than concrete building. For Toronto, the hybrid
and CLT consume 3.1% and 3.3% energy more than concrete building. For Vancouver, the hybrid and
CLT consume 4.5% and 7% energy more than concrete building.

Table 2. The annual HVAC energy consumption

Units (KWh/m2) Montreal Toronto Vancouver
Concrete 114.8417 110.4139 80.75
CLT 118.9583 114.1444 86.43056
Hybrid 117.2944 113.9 84.45556

3.3 Discussion
From the comparison between the three structural systems, it is observed generally under same structural
performance: the concrete system has the least cooling load, the hybrid system is better than CLT
system. This is caused by the thermal mass effect. Thermal mass is a property of the mass of a building
which enables it to store heat, providing "inertia" against temperature fluctuations. However for heating,
there is no significant difference between the three systems. For the annual heating cooling energy
consumption, the concrete system consumes around 2% to 7% less than CLT and hybrid system and
there is no significant difference between CLT and hybrid system.
From the comparison between different cities, it can be tell, Vancouver is influenced by different systems
more than cold climate zone city like Montreal or Toronto. This is because the three systems have more
impact on cooling than heating and Vancouver consume more cooling than Montreal and Toronto.
4 Conclusion and future work

This study discussed the energy performance of CLT and CLT-concrete buildings and compared with
concrete building. Different from the other similar research, this study integrated structural design with
energy modeling. However, due to the scope of this paper only vertical loads are considered. In the future,
the lateral analysis with the shear wall design and also the foundation design could be integrated in this
methodology also. CLT and CLT hybrid have relative lower density than concrete, so under same criteria
the seismic loads caused by the ground motion will be smaller than concrete building which will make the
building relative safer and cost less for seismic reinforcement.

The energy performance of the buildings with the three structural systems are evaluated. Though the
difference of annual HVAC energy consumption is less significant than heating cooling load, with the
development of renewable energy the building level energy flexibility will become an important performance
indicator in the trend of grid decentralization. In this paper only the residential building is discussed,
however, the schedules in the residential building are different from the commercial and educational
institute and similar comparison could be applied.

Besides integrating structural design with energy modeling to investigate the energy performance of the
buildings. There are more related research should be done in order to investigate the comprehensive
performance of CLT and CLT concrete hybrid buildings like carbon emission and life circle cost analysis.
Moreover the CLT design manual Canadian version covers not only the structural analysis but also the
acoustic performance, fire rating and floor vibration. However, for the last three performance, there is no
qualitative evaluation neither the comparison with the traditional building systems. This paper casts some
insight into the integrated building performance study for CLT and CLT hybrid system.

Referrence

Veilleux, L. 2015. Mass timber buildings of up to 12 storeys. Gouvernement du Québec.

Chen, Y., 2012. Comparison of environmental performance of a five-storey building built with cross-
laminated timber and concrete. Sustainable Building Science Program, University of British Columbia-
Department of Wood Science, Vancouver, BC, Canada.
Council, C.W., 2017. Wood design manual. Ottawa, Canada.
Brandner, R., Flatscher, G., Ringhofer, A., Schickhofer, G. and Thiel, A., 2016. Cross laminated timber
(CLT): overview and development. European Journal of Wood and Wood Products, 74(3), pp.331-351.
Tannert, T. and Moudgil, M., 2017, April. Structural Design, Approval, and Monitoring of a UBC Tall Wood
Building. In Structures Congress 2017 (pp. 541-547).
Baker, W.F., Horos, D.R., Johnson, B.M. and Schultz, J.A., 2014. Timber tower research: Concrete
jointed timber frame. In Structures Congress 2014 (pp. 1255-1266).