Structural characteristics of traditional wooden structure construction technology.

Traditional Wood Structure Architecture in China

The traditional wooden buildings in China are composed of columns, beams, purlins, trusses and bucket arches, which bear loads from roofs and floors, as well as wind and earthquake forces. At the latest in the Han Dynasty in the 2nd century BC, two main wood structure systems were formed, namely, beam-lifting type and bucket-piercing type. The key technology of this wood structure system is tenon-mortise structure, that is, the connection between wooden components does not need auxiliary connecting components made of other materials, but mainly depends on the insertion between two wooden components. This connection mode between members makes the wood structure have the characteristics of flexible structure, strong seismic capacity and obvious advantages of prefabrication, on-site assembly and short construction period. The tenon-mortise structure appeared as early as 7,000 years ago in Hemudu cultural relics.

Characteristics of beam-lifting wood structure

The characteristics of beam-lifting wood structure are that the beam head is inserted into the column head, purlin is installed on the beam head, and short columns are inserted into the beam to support the shorter beam. In this way, the total number of beams of each roof truss can reach 5. When using a bucket arch on a column, insert the beam head into the bucket arch. The characteristic of this kind of wooden structure building is that it is easy to divide indoor space, but it needs a lot of materials. Widely used in residential buildings in North China and Northeast China, as well as palaces, temples and other large buildings in most parts of China.

Characteristics of through wood structure

The characteristic of Doutong wood structure is that the columns are connected in series longitudinally with purlins to form a charming roof truss, and purlins are directly inserted on the stigma; Along the purlin direction, the columns are connected in series with a bucket, thus forming an integral frame. This kind of wooden structure building is characterized by limited indoor division space, but less materials. Widely used in residential buildings in Anhui, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, Sichuan and other regions.

There is also a mixed structure of lifting beams and crossing buckets, which is mostly used in some large halls or temples in southern China.

During the Han Dynasty war, the cornices of important buildings were relatively deep, up to 4 meters. Bucket arch is used as a cantilever beam to support the weight of cornice. In the subsequent application of the bucket arch, the beam-column combination technology of "paving (bucket arch) layer" was adopted to support the roof of the palace building with large width and depth.

In addition to single-story buildings, multi-story pavilions and multi-story wooden towers with pure wood structure in the Eastern Han Dynasty also adopted the same structural technology. This shows that this wood structure technology has great applicability.