A Napier University-led research consortium has won a £1.2m grant which will be used to create a ‘Virtual Centre’ to investigate how best to maximise the use of Scottish timber in construction.
The cash boost comes from the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council. Napier – home to the Centre for Timber Engineering – will provide engineering expertise and its partners, Glasgow University and Forest Research, will provide molecular research and knowledge on how tree growth and forest management affect spruce timber quality respectively.
Professor Robert Mackenzie, head of School of the Built Environment at Napier, said there were strong economic and environmental reasons for expanding the sustainable use of Scottish-grown timber in the building industry – not least that use of timber in housing construction had doubled in the past five years and the upward trend was likely to continue.
Timber production and processing are one of Scotland’s largest industries and the Scottish Forest Industries Cluster believes UK market penetration can be increased from 9% to 15% over five years, creating 1,000 new jobs.
The Forestry Commission forecasts that the supply of Scottish timber will double by 2025, with 80% being sitka spruce. However, the quality of sitka spruce has not been researched and is known to be highly variable. The Napier project could change all that.
At present UK businesses import high-grade timber as it costs the same as lower strength grades of Scottish timber. High-strength timber exists in Scotland – and the challenge is to identify it cost-effectively. If Scottish industry is to compete with other timber-producing nations it needs an international presence in wood research, particularly into Sitka spruce.
Prof Mackenzie said: “We have to find ways of selecting high-performance Scottish wood from such a variable resource so we can maximise its use. At present wood is measured by the stiffness of each plank, but we aim to find more productive ways of sorting wood using non-destructive testing involving advanced acoustical and ultrasonic methods and we are confident we have the expertise to do this.”
