Glulam is a structural timber product made of glued-together pieces of wood. It’s a sustainable alternative to large sawn timbers, using smaller trees. Glulam can produce large beams and curves, and can be pressure treated for exterior use.
Glued laminated timber, commonly called glulam, is a type of structural timber product made up of individual pieces of wood glued together with adhesives. It differs from plywood in that the layers are much thicker and the grain of all components run in the same direction. Glue-laminated timber is a good substitute for large, one-part sawn timbers as it can use several smaller pieces of wood from smaller trees to take the place of a single beam that can only be sawn from a larger, shorter tree. old.
As the lumber industry grew during the last half of the 20th century, more emphasis was placed on responsible and forward-thinking practices with regards to the harvesting and management of timber resources. Lumber companies, facing mounting public pressure to become more conservation-minded, were also looking for a way to keep costs down as the mature trees needed for larger sawnwood products became scarcer and more expensive. Glulam was developed as an alternative that addressed both problems.
The introduction of glulam provided a product that could be made up of several smaller pieces of wood, glued together with extremely strong, water-resistant adhesives. These smaller pieces of wood are harvested from smaller trees, which come from young timber forest management districts planted specifically for harvesting, rather than old trees which can take hundreds of years to replace. Trees in the 20 to 30 year old range can provide the lumber needed for this product.
Glulam is similar to other composite wood products such as plywood, but has many distinctive characteristics that set it apart from other types of natural composite wood products. Plywood consists of thin sheets of wood stacked and glued together, with the grain of each successive layer aligned at a 90-degree angle to the previous layer, and is produced in large sheets. Glued laminated timber is made by gluing thicker pieces of wood, 2 cm thick or more, with the grain of each piece running in the same direction. This technique can be used to produce large beams and beams of nearly any size, including shapes impossible to achieve with traditional lumber, especially curves, including compound and multiple curves allowing for design possibilities that are not available when using purely sawn woods. Glued laminated timber is usually untreated, but can be pressure treated for exterior applications.
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