THE CLIMATE IMPACT ON TIMBER STRUCTURES

In the last fifty years the climate change has become an important problem with high social and economic impact. Sadly, there are plenty of events that evidence the risks that the climate-change carries on our own lives, but also on our built environment. One of the most important and oldest building materials used by humans is the timber. Being a natural material it has a direct interaction with the climate factors, therefore it is impacted by the phenomenon of the climate change, as well. Besides other characteristics, the moisture content of the wooden cells is one of the most challenged properties by the global warming. It is a basic requirement that all wood products are made from raw materials with a moisture content that is the expected equilibrium wood moisture at the point of use, otherwise the finished product may be damaged due to greater swelling or shrinkage, pronounced deformation and cracking, making it unsuitable for its intended use. Thus timber buildings older than forty-fifty years, witness to the global warming can be seriously affected by changes in characteristics like strength, stiffness, hardness, high deformation values or appearance of biologically active compounds. In order to protect these structures an understanding of the nature of these changes and setup a series of methods is necessary, without damaging the cultural heritage sites. The aim of the present review is to summarize the impact of the environment, climate and climate-change on timber buildings, and to present the most important analytical methods from the literature, used for the study of wooden material.