On 23 March, a workshop was held in Bordeaux to present the results of the Eguralt project experiments. This event brought together nearly 80 participants, mainly from the South-West of France, representing different structures linked to wood construction.
Aline Barlet (ENSAP Bordeaux) and Régis Le Normand (ENSAP Bordeaux) opened the workshop by presenting the afternoon’s programme. Apolline Oswald (Xylofutur), presented the project as a whole and nine times were organised, corresponding to the nine experiments carried out within the framework of Working Group 2.
Course of the workshop
The first part of the afternoon was devoted to four sessions. The first part was devoted to sustainable development criteria in public procurement. During this time, Géraldine Gay Mallet (Fibois Landes de Gascogne) spoke about the place of wood in public procurement. This intervention was followed by a second time dedicated to BIM and the preliminary project of social housing in wood. During this time, Pierre Cara (HOBO Agency) highlighted the advantages of BIM for the wood industry.
During the third time dedicated to Wood-Concrete Assemblies, opened by Carlos Martins (SerQ), Thomas Brebion presented the Hybridal Wood-Concrete Floor, an innovative product developed by Cruard Charpente. The fourth time was devoted to the Wood-Concrete Flooring made of local wood. Philippe Galimard and Jean-Luc Coureau (Laboratoire I2M) detailed the new opportunities for connected wood-concrete floors and the contribution of research laboratories in the development of new products for construction.
The second part of the afternoon started with a time on Prefabricated Floor Boxes and Ademan showed a video to explain their experimentation. Apolline Oswald (Xylofutur) then gave a presentation by Christophe Jourdain (E-Loft) on the prefabrication of wooden floor boxes. The sixth session of the day was dedicated to the use of hardwood in construction. It started with Gonzalo Cabrera (Cesefor) on the experimentation nº6. Jean-Jacques Soulas (Cambium Experts) then shared his knowledge on the use of local hardwood in construction in France. The seventh session, focused on glued laminated hardwood, was opened by Gonzalo Cabrera. Alain Contal (Critt Bois) followed up on this presentation by discussing the possibilities of using local hardwoods in construction.
The penultimate time was dedicated to Thermal comfort: passive or semi-active thermal mass in timber frames. During this time, Stéphanie Decker (Nobatek/INEF4) talked about the limits of using equipment and solutions for timber construction. Finally, the last part of the workshop, entitled “CLT and sustainability”, started with the video presentation of the experimentation 9 by XERA. Nathalie Tramond (Adkalis) then spoke about the importance of taking into account biological risks to improve the durability of wood constructions.
Closing of the workshop
After the various presentations of the experiments, Régis Le Normand (ENSAP Bordeaux) presented the training module, one of the deliverables of Working Group 3 of the Eguralt project. During this presentation, the participants were able to test one of the pedagogical tools that will be included in the module.
The workshop concluded with a round table discussion on the promotion of medium and high rise timber construction. The speakers were able to exchange views on the different ways to improve and promote the use of wood in construction.
