Till rapporten: Simhallar – ett övergripande perspektiv på teknik, hälsa, beständighet och ekonomi finns en del extra material som stöder rapporten men som är svårt att komma åt. Vi har därför beslutat att göra materialet tillgängligt på detta sätt för att den som är intresserad av simhallar ska kunna få en egen djupare insikt.

Every second year, the Technical Committee A (Computational Aspects of Dam Analysis and Design) of ICOLD organizes an international benchmark workshop on numerical analysis of dams. The purpose is to share knowledge and experience regarding numerical modelling within the fields of dam safety, planning, design, construction as well as operation and maintenance of dams. The Terms of Reference for Committee A state; ”BenchmarkWorkshops are organised to compare numerical models between one another and/or with reference solutions, including the dissemination and publication of results”.

 The 14^th ICOLD International Benchmark Workshop on Numerical Analysis of Dams was held from the 6^th to the 8^th September 2017 in Stockholm, the capital of Sweden. It was organized by the Local Organizing Committee, on behalf of the Swedish National Committee of ICOLD (SwedCold) and the ICOLD Technical Committee A. It was hosted by KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden’s largest technical research and learning institution and one of Europe’s leading technical universities. With respect to hydropower and dam engineering, KTH has for many years been active within of the Swedish hydropower Center (SVC), a key centre for research and educational activities in Sweden. SwedCOLD established in 1931, and is one of the oldest members of the International Commission On Large Dams, ICOLD. The development of hydro power for electricity production was initiated in the late 19th century and made the large scale industrialisation in Sweden possible. About 2000 hydropower plants are in operation in Sweden today, producing almost half of the total electricity supply. Considering the many and relatively old dams in Sweden, organizing the benchmark workshop was important to increase the knowledge regarding managing aging hydropower structures.

The 14^th ICOLD International Benchmark Workshop has addressed current challenges regarding design and maintenance of existing dams and improved the understanding of these by exchange of experience on the use of numerical modelling for design, performance evaluation and safety assessment of dams. On behalf of the organizing committee, I would like to express my sincere appreciation to the formulators/moderators of each theme for their outstanding work to prepare the themes, reviewing the papers and evaluating the results. I also want to thank all participants to the benchmark workshop for their contributions and their presence to this benchmark workshop. Finally, the support from the Technical Committee A and the support from the companies and organizations that sponsored this benchmark workshop is gratefully acknowledged.

Cross Laminated Timber uses the anisotropy of wood to its advantage by placing laminations across the grain. This elegant solution has led to Cross Laminated Timber (CLT or XLAM) being among the most significant recent innovations in timber engineering. It has grown to an economically significant area of R&D in wood sciences and has the ability to replace many traditional building products with a sustainable solution capable to answer the requests of our contemporary society, e.g. regional production, innovative and flexible designing possibilities, sustainability as well as safe design with respect to the building process and the final product.

Invented in Mid Europe some decades ago, the most influential research and development of this product has also been based in Europe for a long time. This is challenged today, as other continents – having started work in this field later but as one joint effort – tend to overtake the European success story. The reasons for this are the known challenges within a unified Europe, very long standardization processes necessitating individual national approaches as well as competition within the timber construction sector rather than joint approaching of new markets.

This conference has compiled knowledge about the material and its use, focusing on the design of CLT structures in ambient and fire situations. To this aim, two COST Actions – FP1402 Basis of structural timber design – from research to standards, and FP1404 Fire Safe Use of Bio-Based Building Products – joined efforts to provide contributions and presentations from world leading experts and to bring together expert communities to realize a scientific discourse on these important and interdisciplinary topics, leading to further joint harmonisation progression in research and development.

This Joint Conference was meant to contribute to a high-quality and open scientific and technical dialogue within the timber community. The programme therefore included time for debate after the presentations as well as the formation of Think Tanks in which all participants, guided by essential questions, discussed the future challenges and development of CLT.

During the Joint Conference, over 200 participants from the worldwide CLT community (ca. 50% coming from industry) showed their will to initiate joint work, concentrating strengths with respect to simplification, harmonisation and, most of all, understanding different points of views. This book contains not only the State-of-the-Art in research and practice, it also documents the valuable thoughts of experts on challenges and necessary developments of CLT within the next years.