Mass Timber Buildings: Impact of Connections on Embodied Carbon

The structural system for mid- to high-rise commercial buildings is primarily composed of steel and concrete. Mass timber systems offer a low carbon alternative to these non-renewable materials. To date, many design tools that help to predict the embodied carbon of mass timber buildings neglect structural connections between beams, girders, and columns. To determine their contribution to total embodied carbon, this project sizes and calculates the embodied carbon of the connections for several case studies.