Location: Nutrition, Food Safety/Quality
Project Number: 0500-00090-001-010-S
Project Type: Non-Assistance Cooperative Agreement
Start Date: Jul 1, 2024
End Date: Jun 30, 2027
Objective:
The overarching goal of this project is to provide companies in the Pacific Northwest (PNW) with fundamental and applied knowledge, and training necessary to develop competitive leadership in emerging domestic and global markets for innovative sustainable structural wood products. Success will increase the value of the region’s forests, support sustainable management, and grow the number of manufacturing jobs in rural communities. The PNW is becoming a national hub for the mass-timber industry, growing its capacity to manufacture mass-timber building components, and broadening the spectrum of value-added wood products available for use in buildings. The entrepreneurial spirit in manufacturing is complemented by the region’s progressive building design profession, which is ideally positioned to expand on its reputation for sustainable design, and establish itself as North America’s hub for expertise in innovative wood building design. However, innovating on such a wide front requires robust research aimed at removing existing barriers, filling persistent gaps in knowledge, as well as building new knowledge in relevant disciplines and providing state-of-the-art training for the expert workforce to support that growth.
This project will provide focused research, education, and workforce development to help the region’s business community capitalize on the growing global interest in using more innovative sustainable wood products in the built environment. Our aim is to provide knowledge that helps stimulate markets, remove barriers, foster innovation, understand and mitigate risks, and inform capital and cost analyses.
Approach:
1) Conduct research to stimulate new wood building design, such as
• Expanding and developing new products, next-generation product concepts, and building components;
• Address safety and livability in mass timber structures through fire, acoustic, and environmental testing;
• Facilitating building construction approvals and processes and alleviating anticipated challenges in wood construction; and
• Fostering markets and next-generation supply chains for large wood buildings and for engineered wood products used in the built environment.
2) Effectively disseminate and communicate research findings to scientists, manufacturers, designers, and relevant public-sector personnel. The research projects carried out under this program will be coordinated by the College of Forestry in partnership with the TallWood Design Institute (TDI) and affiliated academic units. Funded primarily by the State of Oregon, the Institute is a research and outreach partnership among OSU’s College of Forestry, College of Engineering, and University of Oregon’s College of Design, operating the state-of-the-art A.A. “Red” Emmerson Advanced Wood Products Laboratory at OSU. TDI brings together a unique set of expertise in architecture, wood science, and engineering to focus on the development and advancement of innovative wood products and building components, and technologies related to modern wood structures.
Project resources will support graduate student and post doc training and research, providing outstanding opportunities to engage top faculty, utilize world class facilities, and partner with industry and community leaders to addresses relevant challenges.
Our research priorities address the central theme of increasing applications for wood-based products that can be appropriately used for structural purposes in multi-family residential and non-residential wood buildings, including modular and other appropriate applications. Research may focus anywhere along the supply chain where benefits can be derived – from the sourcing and development of materials to their end-of-life, and to design, engineering, manufacture, and construction.
