Timber and concrete hybrid superstructures - A potential step towards sustainability?

Paper in proceeding, 2021

Timber is a renewable material having a lower carbon-footprint than conventional concrete and steel. Hence, timber would be a good choice of material to minimize the carbon-footprint of a building. Superstructures of pure timber are, however, cumbersome to use for multistory purposes - timber is simply too light to stabilize the building properly. Hence, the interest in timber and concrete/steel hybrid structures is increasing. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the potential savings of CO2 emissions in the design of a multistory residential building - this by using timber and concrete in its superstructure instead of only concrete and concurrently ensuring global stability. The study is performed on an existing 17-story residential building with a pure concrete superstructure: The results indicate that the carbon-footprint of the building in question could have been reduced by 48% if a hybrid superstructure had been used instead.