Revista: Fire Safety Journal
Autores: Alvarez, L.; Yanez, J.; Majdalani, A.; Jahn, W.; Pina, J.C.
Fecha: 2026
Abstract
The use of mass timber in mid- to high-rise buildings has increased steadily over the past decade. However, due to its combustible nature, fire remains a critical risk. Architectural openings can significantly influence compartment fire behaviour, affecting char formation and structural performance. This study numerically investigates the response of cross-laminated timber (CLT) walls exposed to compartment fires, with emphasis on wall configuration and opening characteristics. A coupled CFD–FEM framework is employed, using Fire Dynamics Simulator for fire modelling and ANSYS for heat transfer and buckling analyses. An iterative procedure is introduced to account for the contribution of exposed timber to the fire load. Non-delaminating CLT behaviour is assumed, and therefore lamella fall-off during fire exposure is not considered.
CLT walls with rectangular openings of varying size and orientation are analysed. Under the examined fire scenarios, the most critical configurations developed a char layer of approximately 12 mm. The results indicate that opening shape and size strongly influence the fire–structural performance of CLT walls, with smaller horizontal openings located at the centre of the wall leading to higher internal temperatures and greater post-fire buckling capacity losses. The results provide practical insights for the fire-safe design of CLT walls in mass-timber buildings.
Keywords
Cross-laminated timber (CLT), Compartment fire, Thermo–mechanical performance, Fire exposure, Charring, Structural fire performance, Buckling capacity, Coupled fire-structure analysis, Compartment fire dynamics
