Some of Australia’s timber heavyweights are tackling the “golden rules” in mass timber construction as part of Timber DiaLog, a series of online workshops that aim to establish the parameters and considerations when designing a mass timber building.
Led by Nick Hewson, the Director and Founder of Arboralis, a structural engineer and self-proclaimed timber evangelist; Jeremy Church, the General Manager of Technical and Sales for NeXTimber; Nathan Benbow, the Australian Sustainable Hardwoods Engineering Design Manager; and Tyson Infanti, the Director of Business Development for Hasslacher Timber, tomorrow’s lunchtime session, from 13:00 to 14:00 AEST will tackle the critical issue of fire.
“For our next session, we’re moving onto fire, so we know this will be a hot topic,” the panel said, with “James O’Neill is a highly experienced structural fire engineer and will draw on his extensive experience in mass timber buildings to lead the discussion and see if we can agree on some guiding principles when looking to start your next mass timber project.”
Mr O’Neill is managing director of Carbon Engineering and has been consulting within the New Zealand industry since 2007 and Australia since 2013. With a wealth of experience in all project sectors across New South Wales, Queensland, ACT and Western Australia, James is an industry leader in specialist timber fire engineering and design for manufacture and assembly.
With a Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering, a Master of Fire Engineering and a PhD in Fire Engineering from the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, Mr O’Niell’s research was dedicated to the structural fire analysis of heavy timber assemblies for multi-storey building applications.
In addition, he has co-authored numerous design guidelines on the fire design of heavy timber assemblies such as LVL, glulam, and CLT systems. Mr O’Neill has also sat on the committee revising fire design for timber standards in Australia and New Zealand and advised numerous standards and practice committees worldwide.
Before founding Carbon Fire Engineering, James was a Technical Director at Holmes and the Queensland State Manager. James is a recognised market leader in structural fire engineering. In addition to his considerable expertise with timber structures, he has significant experience in analysing steel and concrete structures within the construction industry across all building sectors.