Mortise-and-tenon joinery for modern timber construction: Quantifying the embodied carbon of an alternative structural connection

The mass timber industry offers a compelling pathway for low-carbon structural systems in buildings, replacing carbon-intensive materials like concrete and steel with sustainably forested wood. However, conventional connections construction are largely made of metallic materials, such as screws, nails, plates. In contrast, joinery, or geometrically interlocking all-timber connections, is globally prevalent historic construction. This paper investigates the potential applying specifically “Nuki” mortise-and-tenon joinery connection, to contemporary from perspectives behavior carbon savings. Considering single spans supporting one-way cross-laminated (CLT) floor at mid-rise residential scale, savings ranging 7 40% possible beam-joint scale by using Nuki joints instead concealed beam hangers, more connection. While these smaller building nevertheless demonstrates methodology results quantitatively comparing achieved implementing this but contemporarily alternative connection type.