Metsä Wood hosted a full-day seminar at their Head Office in Boston, Lincolnshire this week in association with the Institution of Structural Engineers. The free event focused on Eurocode 5 and looked specifically at design solutions for complex timber structures.
Richard Baynes, Chairman of Peterborough's Regional Group of the Institution of Structural Engineers along with Metsä Wood's Head of Technical, Engineering and Design, Frank Werling, opened the event to over 50 attendees that included both Structural and Civil Engineers
Metsä Wood invited four inspiring guest speakers; Richard Harris, an honorary professor at Bath University, Dr. Christian Malaga-Chuquitaype, lecturer at Imperial College London, Julian Marcroft from Marcroft Timber Consultancy and Franco Moar from Rothoblaas. Frank Werling and Ewa Ostrowska (Metsä Wood's Senior Engineer) also took two of the speaker slots to give an introduction to Eurocodes and also Building Information Modelling for timber structures.
Above: (from left to right) Julian Marcroft, Franco Moar, Richard Harris, Dr. Christian Malaga-Chuquitaype, Frank Werling and Ewa Ostrowska.
Mr Baynes stated "This was a cutting edge seminar on modern timber design held in the impressive setting of the 'Timber Academy' at Metsa Wood's head Office. The superbly organised seminar offered six excellent speakers - who provided us with in-depth Technically superb presentations, ranging from the consideration of Tall Timber Buildings subject to earthquakes and Tornados; Deflection & Vibration of Timber Floors; Structural Analysis of Complex Timber Structures, Up to the minute Timber connection design, an over view of timber related Eurocodes through to immensely relevant Computer Aided Design BIM for Timber Structures."
Richard also commented "It was a marvellous technical feast – with mind expanding issues that both excited and energised the numerous Engineers who attended".
This is the first event that Metsä Wood has held of this kind at its purpose built Timber Academy which is used on a regular basis to train customers and employees, giving them an introduction to timber.
Mr Werling commented "I feel very encouraged to see so many engineers in one room interested in timber design, being inspired by the first class speakers at our Eurocode 5 workshop. The surrounding Kerto® LVL frames in the Boston Timber Academy gave each seminar participant a practical example of how flexible and versatile Engineered Wood Products like Kerto can be."
Kerto® is a laminated veneer lumber (LVL), produced from 3mm thick rotary-peeled softwood veneers that are glued together to form a continuous sheet which makes it incredibly strong and dimensionally stable. The Kerto product range includes Kerto-S, Kerto-Q and Kerto-Ripa which can be used in all types of construction.