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151 results

A decade review on hardwood composites and their research developments

Journal Article
Blanchet, P., Cabral, M. R., Silva, J. V. F., García-Jaca, J., Ridley-Ellis, D., McGetrick, P. J., Nocetti, M., & Pommier, R. (2025)
A decade review on hardwood composites and their research developments. European Journal of Wood and Wood Products, 83, Article 65. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00107-025-02216-0
Composite materials, such as engineered wood products (EWPs), are favored for their stability, durability, and uniform mechanical properties, making them a potential way to va...

Timber properties of species with potential for wider planting in Great Britain

Report
Price, A., Ridley-Ellis, D., Adams, S., Lehneke, S., Ash, A., & Macdonald, E. (2024)
Timber properties of species with potential for wider planting in Great Britain. Forest Research
Diversifying the range of tree species planted in Great Britain is an important goal in adapting to climate change and increasing the resilience of British forests. The wood p...

Shear and Torsion

Report
Plowas, W. (2024)
Shear and Torsion. Timber Development UK
Eurocode 5 provides verifications for design for timber beams subjected to shear and to torsion. It gives verifications for design for shear, for stress components (both para...

Cross Laminated Timber

Report
Plowas, W. (2024)
Cross Laminated Timber. Timber Development UK
Cross Laminated Timber, also known as CLT or X-lam, is an engineered timber product with a minimum of three cross-bonded layers. At least one layer is orthogonally oriented to...

Designing with Cross Laminated Timber (CLT)

Report
Plowas, W. (2024)
Designing with Cross Laminated Timber (CLT). Timber Development UK
The development of CLT brought new possibilities for timber in construction. Instead of framing smaller timber sections to form load-bearing structural systems, timber product...

Lateral Torsional Buckling

Report
Plowas, W. (2024)
Lateral Torsional Buckling. Timber Development UK
Lateral torsional instability occurs when a beam’s compression face is not fully restrained against lateral movement and its relative slenderness is high. The beam may fail by...

Fire Performance of Timber and Timber Products

Report
Plowas, W. (2024)
Fire Performance of Timber and Timber Products. Timber Development UK

Eurocode 5: Design Principles

Report
Plowas, W. (2024)
Eurocode 5: Design Principles. Timber Development UK
The Eurocode System introduced a design philosophy called Limit State Design. Structures are assessed at the service or working load condition, i.e. states beyond which the st...

Eurocode 5: Introduction

Report
Plowas, W. (2024)
Eurocode 5: Introduction. Timber Development UK
The Eurocode System is designed to ‘eliminate technical obstacles to trade and the harmonisation of technical specifications’ in construction within the EEA. It covers all mai...

Timber and Fire Building Regulations

Report
Plowas, W. (2024)
Timber and Fire Building Regulations. Timber Development UK
The legislative system underpinning fire safety intends to protect life through each stage of the design, construction, and occupation of a building. This results in a reasona...
37 results

IOM3 Grants to support Knowledge Exchange

2025 - 2026
Travel grant to facilitate attendance of conference in Brisbane, Australia, and the undertaking of additional Knowledge Exchange work during the trip.
Value: £2,770

Commercialisation of Homegrown Wood Fibre

2023 - 2025
To enhance the utilisation of the current English Forest resource for built environment delivery and correspondingly influence future forest strategies by demonstrating what is possible and scalable. ...
Funder: Forestry Commission England | Value: £4,200

Commercialisation of Homegrown Wood Fibre

2023 - 2025
To enhance the utilisation of the current English Forest resource for built environment delivery and correspondingly influence future forest strategies by demonstrating what is possible and scalable. ...
Funder: Forestry Commission England | Value: £4,200

An easier route for strength grading UK hardwoods

2023 - 2026
The project aims to improve grading options for home-grown hardwoods, with a more cost-effective route to establishing grading and easier to apply visual grading rules for producers. Properties of thr...
Funder: Scottish Forestry Trust | Value: £35,000

An Investigation into the Structural Performance of Engineered Wood I-Joists with Web Openings

2023 - 2026
This research will be conducted in collaboration with James Jones and Sons. The aim is to conduct a research investigation to evaluate the influence of geometrical and numerical configurations of web ...
Funder: James Jones & Sons Ltd | Value: £51,297

SIRT Transition & Project Development 2023

2023 - 2024
Forward planning for the SIRT project as we move into the new phase of the project in April. This includes time taken for field work not included in the original SIRT plan, project planning for the cu...
Funder: Scottish Forestry | Value: £9,583

Building From England's Woodlands

2022 - 2025
The focus of the project is to develop 5 building system concepts through innovative digital design, adapted to the characteristics of 5 underutilised home-grown English timber species. Each project s...
Funder: Forestry Commission England | Value: £109,975

SIRT 2021-2022 (WP1&2)

2021 - 2025
Our research activities are focused on understanding the physical and mechanical properties of wood and how these affect its performance in different applications. Our main aim is to better understand...
Funder: Scottish Forestry | Value: £165,522

PhD, An Investigation of the Influence of Construction Methods on the Dynamic Response of Long Span Residential Timber Floors

2021 - 2024
This PhD project will investigate the influence of optimum effectiveness of construction parameters and level of fixity to obtain satisfactory vibrational performance timber floors built with long spa...
Funder: Scottish Government | Value: £30,000

Phase I: Innovation and commercialisation of homegrown wood fibre insulation

2021 - 2022
A project that seeks to outline the innovation and commercial use of natural fibre insulation products in the UK. It will be based on a gap analysis of products that are currently available from natu...
Funder: Scottish Forestry | Value: £37,961
10 results

An Investigation into the Structural Performance of Engineered Wood I-Joists with Web Openings

2023 - date
Sini Lu | Director of Studies: Dr Aamir Khokhar | Second Supervisor: Dr Daniel Barreto Gonzalez

Mass Timber Systems - An approach to delivering sustainable construction by effective use of homegrown resources

2023 - date
Wojciech Plowas | Director of Studies: Prof Robert Hairstans | Second Supervisor: Dr Dan Ridley-Ellis

Investigations into the application of engineered bamboo for future hybrid beams

2015 - 2020
Around half of all non-renewable resources mankind consumes are used in construction sector, making it one of the least ...
Niaz Gharavi | Director of Studies: Prof Johnson Zhang | Second Supervisor: Dr Kenneth Leitch

Automated code compliance for structural timber design with building information modelling

2014 - 2020
Dr Andrew Livingstone | Director of Studies: Prof Robert Hairstans | Second Supervisor: Prof Sean Smith

Potential of noble fir, Norway spruce, western red cedar and western hemlock grown for timber production in Great Britain

2013 - 2018
"I am investigating the merchantability and wood properties of Noble fir (Abies...
David Gil-Moreno | Director of Studies: Dr Dan Ridley-Ellis

Photogrammetric and stereo vision techniques for evaluating material properties in timber and timber-based composite structures

2010 - 2016
Dr Ahmed Mohamed | Director of Studies: Prof Johnson Zhang | Second Supervisor: Prof Abdy Kermani

The development of a hybrid racking panel

2007 - 2013
Throughout the U.K, Timber Platform Frame is increasingly being utilized in the high volume, low cost housing market. Here, the client’s desire for full...
Dr Kenneth Leitch | Director of Studies: Prof Robert Hairstans | Second Supervisor: Dr Jack Porteous

The use of torsion test method to evaluate the shear modulus and the shear strength of timber joists

2005 - 2011
Dr Aamir Khokhar | Director of Studies: Prof Johnson Zhang | Second Supervisor: Dr Dan Ridley-Ellis

Moisture conditions in external timber cladding: field trials and their design implications

2004 - 2011
This research was funded by the EU Northern Periphery Programme as part of a trans-national project titled: E...
Dr Ivor Davies | Director of Studies: Charles Fairfield | Second Supervisor: Alastair Stupart

Optimising Timber Frame Construction

2002 - 2007
Timber platform frame has evolved as an efficient method of construction for domestic dwellings and is experiencing continual growth in the UK due to it lending its...
Prof Robert Hairstans | Director of Studies: Prof Abdy Kermani | Second Supervisor: Fouad Khalaf

Date


Research Areas

6 results

3MT Competition is Open!

7 May 2025
3MT Competition is open for submissions! Can you convince non-specialist audiences that your research is really as important as you believe it is? Here’s your chance to find out!

Educational Visit to a Retrofit Project and Offsite Manufacturing Facility

18 February 2025
Students from Edinburgh Napier University (ENU) have been learning first hand from the deep retrofit of Built Environment – Smarter Transformation (BE-ST)’s National Retrofit Centre. The agenda includ...

University academic to insist "no such thing as a tree" (to foresters)

13 March 2019
Dan Ridley-Ellis, the Head of the Centre for Wood Science and Technology, will be giving the Royal Forestry Society's Lawrence Pilling Memorial Lecture at the Worcestershire Federation of Young Farmer...

Edinburgh Napier University playing key role for structural timber throughout Europe

8 March 2019
On the 19th and 20th of March, Dan Ridley-Ellis, head of the Centre for Wood Science and Technology, will chair his first meeting as convenor of a key timber standards committee. This CEN task group ...

Edinburgh Napier University plays vital role for production of structural timber throughout Europe

7 December 2018
Dan Ridley-Elis, head of the Centre for Wood Science an Technology at Edinburgh Napier University has been made convenor of the European Standards expert group that supports the production of graded t...

Associate Professor on judging panel for national structural timber awards

18 January 2018
Head of the Centre for Wood Science and Technology, Dan Ridley-Ellis, is on the judging panel for the 2018 Structural Timber Awards. These awards - covering several categories including social housin...