RelyConnect – Reliable and high-performance timber structures with modern connections

Research Project, 2024 – 2026

Building with timber is one of the key actions to achieve a more sustainable built environment and shift the construction sector towards lower carbon emissions. It is crucial to apply timber also in structures of higher complexity, which today are built using less sustainable building materials. This project addresses the main obstacle for a wider use of timber in modern complex structures: the lack of knowledge on how the connection behaviour affects the global system behaviour of timber structures.We will account for the effect of the non-linear behaviour of high-performance connections between individual timber members on the efficiency and reliability of the entire structural systems and derive approaches and recommendations on how to account for it in the design.This consideration of the more realistic connection behaviour, compared to the existing methods, will enable structural engineers to account for load redistribution effects and increase efficiency of modern timber structures and to prevent failures, damages, and collapses through increased robustness. Hence, there is much to be gained for modern timber structures in terms of efficiency, safety, and reliability, which increases trust in timber as construction material for modern high-performance applications. The project is a collaboration between Sweden and Switzerland and embedded in a European research network (COST).