What Is Glue Laminated Timber

Glue laminated timber glt for residential commercial mass timber construction in australia the construction industry is responsible for 23 of greenhouse gas emissions green building council of australia 2019.

What is glue laminated timber.

Strength graded and ready finished glued timber products etc. Large glulam members are produced from smaller pieces of stress graded and seasoned timber known as laminates. Such products are used as they are in loadbearing construction and as blanks for various wood products such as window frames laminated logs etc. Glue laminated timber is the product of a manufacturing process where a number of smaller layers of timber are glued together to make a larger single component.

Glued timber is a wood product which does not fulfil the laminated timber standards but is made by gluing two or more items of sawn goods together. In north america the material providing the laminations is termed laminating stock or lamstock. When glued with industrial adhesives usually melamine or polyurethane resin. Other common engineered wood products include plywood oriented strandboard osb and laminated veneer lumber lvl.

Glued laminated wood glulam is a structural material manufactured through the union of individual wood segments. These emissions can be reduced by choosing timber as the preferred building material. It is a way of manufacturing timber elements that cannot be easily sourced in solid timber due to their large size or unusual shape. A glue laminated timber is an engineered wood product meaning it is made from wood but is machined and assembled to precise specifications to create a predictable dimensionally stable building material.

Glulam was first used in europe in the early 1890s. Glue laminated timber glulam is a structural engineered wood product commonly used for beams and columns in residential and commercial applications. Glulam originated in germany around 1900 but didn t make its way to australia until the 1950s. Glue laminated timber glulam is when laminates are glued together by layering them with the grain which produces larger and longer length members.

Cross laminated timber clt is when layers of timber known as lamellas are glued together with the grain alternating at 90 degree angles for each layer. Cross laminated timber clt a sub category of engineered wood is a wood panel product made from gluing together layers of solid sawn lumber i e lumber cut from a single log each layer of boards is usually oriented perpendicular to adjacent layers and glued on the wide faces of each board usually in a symmetric way so that the outer layers have the same orientation. It is now used for both structural and decorative applications.