The shrinking global forest area limits the supply of industrially usable raw resources. This, in combination with the ever-increasing consumption of timber due to population growth can lead to the lack of a positive balance between the annual volumetric growth and consumption of wood. An important innovation toward increasing environmental and economic sustainability of timber production is to reduce the volume of wood residues by minimizing the sawing kerf. It results in higher material yield but may impact the dimensional accuracy of derived products. Therefore, the cutting tool geometry as well as the sawing process as a whole must be carefully optimized to assure optimal use of resources. The goal of this study is to better understand the causes of machining errors that occur when sawing wood with saws of varying thickness of kerf, with a special focus on re-sawing thin lamellae performed on the gang saw. Numerical simulations were tested against experimental results, considering influence of diverse components of cutting forces, in addition to the initial and operating stiffness coefficients of the saw blade. It has been demonstrated that asymmetric loads from the cutting process for the scraper saw blade can cause sawing inaccuracies. The simulation methodology developed in this research can be straightforwardly extended towards determination of optimal geometry of other cutting tools, particularly with the reduced sawing kerf. This may lead to more sustainable use of natural resources as well as an increase in economic gain for the wood processing industries.

Traditional shape and stress control of structures use many actuators and require enormous time to find reasonable solutions that need designers to input specific target displacement and stress. This study employs a linear technique to static shape and stress control of pin-jointed assemblies as a theoretical advancement to prior works and provides a comparative analysis against previously established works. The study evaluates the proposed method using MATLAB to find the optimum set of actuators, and MATLAB and SAP2000 to verify the actuation results obtained through applying the set of actuations to the numerical models. The proposed method minimizes the number of trials, count of actuators, and total actuation up to 83%, 73%, and 50%, respectively. Furthermore, the optimum solution could be found in a single trial. The study focuses on the three aspects: (a) finding the optimal count of actuators; (b) optimum amount of actuation using fmincon function; and c) Implementing two-sided inequalities to control equations allowing designers to develop target internal forces and nodal displacements, as domains rather than specific numbers. This improves the optimization process affecting actuator count, total actuation elements, and processing time.

Wood frame buildings are very popular in regions that are exposed to different dynamic excitations including earthquakes. Therefore, their seismic resistance is really important in order to prevent structural damages and human losses. The aim of the present paper is to show the results of experimental tests focused on the dynamic response of wall panels of a wooden frame building with thermal isolation made of mineral wool and polyurethane foam. Firstly, the static and the dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) tests were conducted so as to determine the basic thermomechanical properties of the analyzed isolation materials. Then, the elements of the exterior walls with two types of thermal insulation were tested under harmonic excitation for different amplitudes of displacement. The results of the static material tests indicate that the polyurethane foam behaves in a highly nonlinear way both during compression and tension. Moreover, the results of the DMA tests show that the storage and loss modulus of the polyurethane foam are significantly larger in relation to the values obtained for the mineral wool. The results of the dynamic tests on wall panels show that the use of polyurethane foam as thermal isolation leads to a substantial increase in stiffness and damping properties, as compared to the case when the mineral wood is used.

This article presents the study of the optimal design solutions for regeneration of marketplaces. It examines the design variants for the revitalisation of the marketplace, in particular, investment in their modernisation in order to find the most optimal model for transforming these public spaces to have a significant impact on the city’s development. The research is a comparative analysis of the implementation of regeneration design models on the marketplace within the Oliwa district of Gdansk (Poland).The data for the case study design models includes analysis based on various optimisation criteria, taking into account the urban and economic aspects of the city landscape when selecting a specific space revitalisation design model. The implementation of regeneration investment includes a number of complex processes that must be sustainable and so require rational social and spatial planning, as well as proper organisation in terms of cost and time.

The wooden frame constructions are now popular in many developed countries of the world. Many of these locations where such buildings are constructed are exposed to seismic and other shocks which are generated by human activities. This paper discusses the effect of the size and location of openings in the wooden frame walls under dynamic loadings. Natural frequencies of such frames with and without openings have been determined. Three 14 m high walls with different widths, including 3, 6, and 12 m, have been considered. Dynamic analysis has been made using finite element method structural analysis software Dlubal RFEM 5.17. The results show that the effect of the size and location of the openings on the natural frequency is significant. Numerically speaking, the relative change of the natural frequencies of a wall without and with an opening in a specific place could be up to 30%. In addition, the change of the natural frequency for the location of the openings is more sensitive than that to the sizes. Furthermore, the appropriate sizes and locations of openings of the wooden frame walls have been suggested. The appropriate size and place were found to be small openings in the top of the walls.