Buildings made from masonry, steel, wood and concrete are very durable when correctly executed. For the production of masonry, steel and concrete, however, finite resources such as sand, limestone and iron ore are required - as is a great deal of energy. Furthermore, large quantities of CO2 are released due to the high energy input during the production and transport of these building materials as well as through chemical processes during cement production.
In view of climate change, the scarcity of raw materials and rising energy prices, wood as a building material is increasingly moving into the focus of politics and the construction industry.
Construction timber has a significantly lower energy requirement than conventional building materials, is regenerative and, furthermore, is also locally available. During its utilization period, wood stores CO2, thereby relieving the atmosphere. With regard to climate change, it is therefore advantageous for timber buildings to have as long a service life as possible.
In order to find out what effects climate change has on the service life of timber buildings, we are carrying out the following investigations within this project in collaboration with the project partner Holzbau Deutschland-Institut:
- In Work Package 1, we define the boundary conditions for the simulations to be used by means of literature researches, analyses of climatic models and frequency of damage occurrence.
- In Work Package 2, the modelling and simulation is performed.
- In Work Package 3, we apply sensitivity analyses and statistical evaluations in order to evaluate and define the critical points for the derivation of action strategies.
Fraunhofer Institute for Wood Research 
