Utvecklingen för Sveriges jordbruk går mot färre och större gårdar runt om i landet. Jordbrukarnas växande verksamhet resulterar i ett ökat antal djur i boskapen. Detta ger ett större behov av stallbyggnader med öppna ytor och långa spännvidder. Länsstyrelsen har uppmärksammat stora variationer i de totala byggkostnaderna för stallbyggnader i landet. Tillsammans med Länsstyrelsen Gävleborg utvecklades en idé att undersöka hur materialkostnaderna påverkas av olika spännvidder och olika stomsystem. Målsättningen är att undersökningen ska resultera i ett beslutsunderlag för ny-, till- och ombyggnation av stallbyggnader. Tidigare forskning och teori undersöktes samt ett flertal platsbesök gjordes för att öka kunskaperna inom området och fastställa vilka spännvidder och stomsystem som skulle undersökas. En parametrisk studie på fyra olika typfall av stallbyggnader gjordes. Två typfall i undersökningen konstruerades av trä och två av stål. Den parametriska studien ska redovisa samband mellan stallbyggnaders spännvidd och kostnad samt vilket stomsystem som är mest ekonomiskt fördelaktigt. Kostnaderna i undersökningen innefattar enbart materialkostnader. Resultatet visar att kostnaderna ökar linjärt med den ökande spännvidden. De undersökta typfallens materialkostnader är relativt likvärdiga, men treledsramen i stål har den lägsta materialkostnaden för samtliga undersökta spännvidder. / The Swedish agriculture is developing towards fewer and larger farms. The growing business for the farmers results in an increased number of animals in livestock. This provides a greater need for agricultural buildings with open spaces and long spans. Länsstyrelsen has noted large variations in total construction costs for agricultural buildings in the country. Along with Länsstyrelsen Gävleborg developed an idea to explore how material costs are affected by various spans and different frame systems. The objective is that the study will result in a decision-making basis for new construction and reconstruction of agricultural buildings. Previous research and theories were examined and a number of site visits were made to increase knowledge in the field and determine which spans and frame system to be investigated. Parametric studies of four different scenarios of the agricultural buildings were made. Two cases in the study were constructed of glulam and two of steel. The parametric study is to report relationship between agricultural building spans and costs as well as which building system that is most economically advantageous. The cost of the survey includes only material costs. The result shows that the cost increases linearly with the increasing span. The material costs of the four tested scenarios are relatively equal, but the tapered steel frame has the lowest material cost for all tested spans.

Timber constructions have during the past two or three decades become more andmore common, mostly due to the easy prefabrication and the cheap, sustainablematerial. For long-span applications it is vital to find design solutions that optimizethe structure from the point of view of material consumption, number of theconnections, structural reliability etc.This thesis focuses on the structural optimization of a long span timber structureearlier developed by a Swedish glulam company for industry buildings and sport hallapplications. The main goal of this study has been the minimization of the volume ofwood required to built the structure, given a set of geometrical restrictions and theassigned loads.The optimal shape of the structure and the arrangement of the different elementshas been investigated by means of theoretical analyses taking into account theprincipal directions of stress which would occurr in similar structures with massivecross sections. The results of this investigations give some guidelines to design newtypes of structures, where both mechanical efficiency and manufacturing issues havebeen taken into consideration.Comparisons of the structural models proposed in this thesis with the originalproposal provided by the Swedish glulam company conclude the work, suggestingsome possible improvements.

Joints are critical parts of timber structures, transmitting static and dynamic forces between structural members. The ultimate behavior of e.g. a building depends strongly on the structural configuration and the capacity of its joints. The complete collapse of a building or other less extensive accidents that may occur usually start as a local failure inside or in the vicinity of a joint. Such serious failures have recently occurred in the Nordic countries. Especially the collapses of two large glued-laminated timber (glulam) structures clearly indicate the need of an improved joint design. The trend toward larger and more complex structures even further increases the importance of a safer design of the joints. One aim of this partly experimentally and partly numerically based work has been to investigate if the short term capacity of steel-timber dowel joints loaded parallel to the grain is affected by an initial drying exposure. The experimental results showed that the load-bearing capacity of the joints is indeed reduced by such moisture changes. Moisture induced stresses was mentioned to be the explanation. The key point is that the climates chosen in the present work (20°C / 65% RH and 20°C / 20% RH) are equivalent to service class 1 according to EC5 (Eurocode 5 2004). Thus, EC5 predicts no decrease in load-bearing capacity, in relation to the standard climate used during testing. A decrease in load-bearing capacity in the range of 5-20%, which was found in the present work, is of course not negligible and, therefore, there could be a need to introduce the effect of drying in design codes. Because similar results were also observed for a double-tapered glulam beam, further work should consider timber structures in general. Two numerical methods in order to predict the capacity of multiple steel-timber dowel joints loaded parallel to the grain were tested in the thesis. For the first method, where fracture mechanics (LEFM) concepts were implemented, a good correlation with the experimental results was seen. Also for the second method, where the capacity for a single dowel-type joint as given in EC5 was used as a failure criterion, a good correlation to traditional EC5 calculations of multiple dowel-type joints was seen. One advantage of using numerical methods in design is that the capacity of the joint can be calculated also for cases when the dowels are placed in more complex patterns. From both a structural and an architectural point of view this can be very important. In addition, such numerical methods are effective tools for the structural engineer when considering complicated loading situations in joints, i.e. eccentric loading giving moments in the joint.