With increased awareness about carbon emissions from construction activities & embodied carbon, the use of structural timber in buildings has become more prevalent.

[1] Timber unlike structural steel & concrete is an orthotopic material, that is material properties for timber are different in different local directions.

[2] The microscopic view of timber looks like multiple straws bundled together. The strength along these straws are quite as compared to perpendicular to these.

[3] This poses a significant challenge while designing the structural members & connections.

[4] Further the structural timber elements are cut from forests, dried, processed and structurally graded, then used in the structures.

Hence there is constraint in size of the elements which can be produced.

[5] Timber design is covered in Eurocode EN 1995-1-1.

This is a small post on structural timber, any comments or suggestions are welcomed.