Two CvEEN Professors awarded USDA U.S. Forest Service Wood Innovation Grant

Professors Pantelides and Zhu, were recently awarded a grant from the USDA U.S. Forest Service Wood Innovations Grant program for their project “BRB BRACED FRAMES FOR SEISMICALLY RESILIENT MASS TIMBER BUILDINGS”. The project is proposing a mass timber buckling-restrained braced frame as the lateral force resisting system to enhance the resilience of mass timber buildings. Constructed using wood generated from the national forest system, the mass timber buckling-restrained brace will be integrated with a mass timber frame for structural energy dissipation under seismic or wind loads. The team will improve and optimize the design of structural components based on feedback from a real-time health monitoring system. The goal of the project is to showcase quantifiable structural and economic benefits of using mass timber buckling-restrained braced frames for sustainable and resilient buildings.