Design of wooden structures according to Eurocode 5

From the earliest years of recorded history, trees have provided mankind with food and materials for shelter, fuel and tools. Timber is one of the earliest building materials used by our predecessors, and most of us experience a strong affinity with the beauty and intrinsic characteristics of this natural material when timber is used in the places, we work and live. Timber is the oldest known building material capable of transferring both tension and compression forces- making it naturally suited as a beam element. Timber has been used in the construction of buildings, bridges, machinery, war engines, civil engineering works and boats etc. since mankind first learnt to fashion tools. From an engineering point of view, timber is different from wood. Wood is the substance of which the trunks and branches of trees are made, which is cut and used for various purposes. Timber is wood for building. Before starting formal calculations, it is necessary to understand the standards set up an appropriate design model. In doing this there may be a conflict between simple, but often conservative, models which make the calculations easy, and more complicated models which better reflect the behaviour but with a higher risk of making errors and overlooking failure modes. It is seen that the rules regarding the production of timber structures are not specified in detail in the timber structure standards, earthquake codes and building bylaws are not restrictive. Therefore, timber structure production gets difficult, deficiencies and challenges arise during implementation and monitoring processes in Turkey. In this study, wood structure design was discussed within Eurocode5.