What

What are the loads that will act on a structure during its life cycle? This could be typically 50 years, but a 100 years plus is not uncommon. It is impossible to predict them all and therefore we rely on statistics: each building is basically a prototype with unique features. The mechanical properties of the materials are less unknown and timber has something unique: its mechanical strength is not constant, it changes according to the force-fiber direction, it changes with the duration of the loads and it changes with the environmental conditions.

Ergodomus specializes in the design of timber structures in areas with high seismic risk by evaluating the real behavior of the material through sophisticated and tested numerical models developed internally and based on our extensive experience. The wind is often the main sizing criterion for tall buildings to guarantee the occupants the required comfort (ISO 10137): for this structural type, we offer sophisticated FEM 3D CFD simulations.

Fire is a very important issue, as timber is a structural material with a "non-zero" reaction to fire (D-s2, d0 as per UNI EN 13986). Its behavior under fire load is predictable, but it requires specific structural knowledge ti mitigate failure in the key zones.

The structural analysis must consider all these aspects and have, as a final result, the sizing of the structural elements and their connections.

Why ?

The life-safety of the building occupants is a priority and should not be compromised for any reason. The experience Ergodomus has gained in almost 15 years, designing over 300 buildings, goes far beyond the clinical numbers generated by FEM software and allows us to deliver on all the critical design parameters such as earthquake, wind and fire. The constant search for perfection and innovation, at all costs, has pushed Ergodomus to develop inhouse calculation methods that allow analysis of even the the most complex situations. This is underpinned with the knowledge of global safety coefficients.


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Computational Design

The geometric modeling, the application of loads and the interpretation of results is practically impossible on very complex structures using “traditional methods”. For this reason, we have developed a few lossless workflows that allow different software to interact with each other to generate geometries, apply loads and optimize the size of the elements.

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Fire

Timber is a structural material that is combustible under certain conditions, and due to a constant ‘charring rate’ it has a predictable behavior under fire load.


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