Cross-Laminated Timber: Production Of Panel Using Sesenduk Timber Species

Engineered wood product such as Cross-laminated Timber is the preferred building material among timber builders for the advantages that the panel has such as utilization of small dimension timber as structural components. Issues of excessive forest logging and environmental impact results in depreciating supply of local timber resources in Malaysia thus price are increased. These factors does affect builders’ decision in using timber in their construction projects. Many are substituting timber component such as roof truss with aluminium or steel component. Research done on CLT panel enable builders to utilize non-structural grade timber and lesser known species into structural component. This also reduced the dependency on high-grade commercial timbers that are decreasing in numbers. Furthermore, the advancement of CLT building system provides a new method for builders to design and build their structure as well as the advantages of reduced construction time and labour cost. CLT building may include other engineered wood product component such as glulam, LVL, I-joist etc. and can also be hybrid building of concrete and CLT. The possibility of using the panel is limitless as it is the future direction of timber utilization in building construction. There are already medium-rise building made out of CLT and many residentials and municipal buildings are built using CLT in Europe and other developed countries. In Malaysia, CLT is still at introductory stages where few studies are done at Forest Research Institute Malaysia (FRIM). There is huge potential for CLT to be implemented in Malaysia and the construction industries have the opportunity to use timber as their building materials.