Daniel Dowden on Earthquake Resistance in Mass Timber Construction

Daniel Dowden
Daniel Dowden

Daniel Dowden (CEGE) was credited by DBusiness in a story about the benefits and potential of mass timber in the construction industry. Dowden provided info on mass timber buildings’ ability to withstand earthquakes.

Cited by National Geographic as the sustainable material with which future cities could be built, mass timber is an engineered wood that architects and builders increasingly see as a structural alternative to steel and concrete.

According to Dowden, steel and mass timber buildings can be built to respond in an equivalent manner to an earthquake of the same magnitude, but a mass timber structure built with cross-laminated timber walls that are designed to resist lateral forces must also be designed to withstand larger forces because wood is a brittle material compared to steel.

Read more at DBusiness, by Tom Beaman.