Glue Line Integrity in FIRE

Cross laminated timber is an increasingly popular structural material and is cited for its applicability for tall buildings, architectural desirability and low climate impact among other things. Recent studies have shown that glue line integrity failure of some CLT products can occur when exposed to fire, which impacts the charring rates for fire resistance calculations and may compromise the ability of building fires to decay. 

The objective of GLIF (Glue Line Integrity in Fire) is the development of a standard fire testing methodology and a characterisation method of the glue line integrity of CLT and comparable engineered mass timber materials.

This is essential to allow:

a) the structural designer to choose the appropriate model for fire resistance calculations according to the upcoming version of Eurocode 5

b) the fire engineer to predict the development of natural fires

Click here for the final report

Figure: Overview of GLIF related tests and analyses (numbers are indicated below)

1. CLT compartment fire tests (Background) Conference Paper
2. Experimental fire simulation of a compartment fire. Click here for report of test method (Method development) Conference Paper
3. GLIF fire test development and correlation between fire resistance and GLIF test output (Method development) Conference Paper Video
4. Comparison between GLIF test and compartment fire conditions using experimental fire simulations (Method development) Report
5. Assessment of sensitivity to moisture and density (Validation of method) Report
6. Round Robin furnace study at different laboratories (Validation of method) Overview table
7. Assessment of applicability for compartment fires (Validation of method) Report of liaison project

Additional reports are due in April 2021, regarding:

• the influence of exposed CLT (that is compliant with the GLIF threshold) on façade exposure
• modeling of fires with GLIF threshold compliant CLT