Flexural Creep Effects On Permanent Wood Foundation Made Of Structural Insulated Foam-Timber Panels

Abstract

A Permanent Wood Foundation (PWF) is a panel composed of expanded polystyrene insulation and preserved stud cores laminated between oriented-strand boards and preserved plywood. This thesis presents the experimental testing on selected PWFs' sizes to investigate their long-term creep behaviour under sustained soil pressure. The long-term creep tests were performed over eight months, followed by loading the tested panels to destruction to determine their axial compressive strength. The ultimate load test results showed that the structural qualification of PWF is "as good as" the structural capacity of the conventional wood-frame buildings. The obtained experimental ultimate compressive resistance and flexural resistance, along with the developed long-term creep deflection of the wall under lateral soil pressure can be used in the available Canadian Wood Council (CWC) force-moment interaction equation to establish design tables of such wall panels under gravity loading and soil pressure.