BULACAN STATE UNIVERSITY

Malolos, Bulacan
College of Engineering
Civil Engineering Department

CE 483
TIMBER STRUCTURES
(Written Report)

TOPICS:

Three Principal Axes of Wood

Types of Failure Under Compression Parallel to Grain
Factors Affecting the Strength of Stiffness of Wood

GROUP II:
Andres, Camille Fern F.
Armado, Ronn Zayrel A.
Borillo, Maria Angelica C.
Canaman, Lean Chino D.
Medollar, Thonie Rose C.
Perez, Garrie Lloyd C.
Perez, Nodnyl RJ D.C.
 I. THREE PRINCIPAL AXES OF WOOD

Orthotropic Nature of Wood:

Wood may be described as an orthotropic material; that is, it has unique and
independent mechanical properties in the directions of three mutually perpendicular
axes: longitudinal, radial and tangential (Figure 3).

Fig. 3

The longitudinal axis is parallel to the fiber (grain). Wood grain is the longitudinal
arrangement of wood fibers.

The radial axis is normal to the growth rings (perpendicular to the grain in the radial direction);
Growth rings vary in width depending on species and site conditions. Rings formed during
short or dry seasons are thinner than those formed when growing conditions are more favorable.
Also, rings formed in shady conditions are usually thinner than those formed by the same
species in sunny conditions. It is commonly believed that the age of a tree may be determined
by counting these rings. However, this method can lead to errors because abnormal
environmental conditions can cause a tree to produce multiple-growth increments or even
prevent growth entirely for a period

The tangential axis T is perpendicular to the grain but tangent to the growth rings.
II. TYPES OF FAILURE UNDER COMPRESSION PARALLEL TO GRAIN

Compression failures include the following types:

a) Crushing - In this failure, the wood had compressive stresses on the cross
sectional area. Thus, the combined shear and compressive stresses are the reason
for small cracks in growth rings. (Growth rings are visible as concentric circles
of varying width when a tree is cut crosswise. A layer of wood formed in a plant
during a single period of growth. They represent layers of cells produced by
vascular cambium.) The cracks began in the Radial-Tangential plane and
propagated along Longitudinal-Radial plane.

b.) Wedge-splitting – almost same to crushing. Only, the path changes direction
from diagonal to a little longitudinal or parallel to the length.

c.) Shearing - This failure takes place because of edge knots that are usually
surrounded by cross grain and this cross grain breaks locally in shear to initiate
the failure. For this failure, cracks were usually started at either top or bottom
side due to a knot. Then, propagated as a diagonal crack along the long side to
rupture the specimen in shear due to knot at the other edge. (Knots are broken
limbs or sprout branches. In simple words, these are common blemishes in trees.

d.) Splitting – In this failure it is caused by too much compression force parallel,
directed to the cross-sectional area of the wood.

e.) Crushing and splitting - a combination of crushing due to an additional shear

force and splitting by excess compressive force.

f.) Brooming or end rolling –It is also known as end rolling. This is usually caused
by defects in cutting tool or improper method in cutting the wood that releases
hair-like fibers in the end part of the cut part.
III. FACTORS AFFECTING THE STRENGTH OF STIFFNESS OF WOOD

Major factors affecting strength and stiffness properties of small clear wood test
specimens are:

a.) Species - Wood is a natural, renewable engineering material categorized into

approximately 70 groups with unique properties mainly its strength and
stiffness, that facilitate its use for indoor and outdoor applications. However,
due to some undesirable properties, such as susceptibility to biodegradation
when exposed to microbiological attack and dimensional instability under
varying moisture conditions, wood has a limited service life (Mohan et al. 2008;
Temiz et al. 2010). In order to extend the service life of unprotected wood,
chemical treatments, mainly water- and oil-based preservatives, are widely
used. Thus, it may help in the construction of structures.
b.) Moisture Content - Unless artificially dried, wood will contain moisture. The
moisture content is defined as: Moisture content (%) = 100 × mass of
water/mass of dry wood. The moisture content can be determined by weighing,
drying (103 ℃) and drying again. The moisture content may also be determined
by an electric moisture meter measuring the electric resistance. It is faster but
not so accurate. When drying timber from the natural condition (green
condition), the free water in the cell cavity disappears first until the fibre
saturation point is reached (moisture content just below 30 %) - then the water
in the cell walls disappear. Moisture changes above the fibre saturation point
have no effect. Moisture changes below the fibre saturation point influence the
strength and stiffness and result in dimensional changes (shrinking/swelling).
Below the fiber saturation point, when moisture is reduced, strength increases
due to changes in the cell walls, which become more compact. Their structural
units come closer together and the attractive forces between cellulose chain
molecules become stronger.

c.) Specific Gravity - Much of the variation in wood properties within and between
trees can be attributed to density. The cell wall substance is actually heavier
than water; with a density of about 1.5 kg m–3 regardless of species. The dry
wood of most species nevertheless floats in water, and thus it is evident that part
of the volume of a piece of wood is occupied by cell cavities and pores. Specific
Gravity is the best and simplest index of the strength of wood. In the absence of
knots and other defects, specific gravity is therefore an excellent indicator of the
amount of wood substance present and is a good predictor of mechanical
properties. As the density increases, specific gravity increases too. Thus, with
increasing density, strength also increases. Greater specific gravity derives from
a greater proportion of cells with thick walls and small cavities, and this result
in higher strength of wood.

d.) Duration of Loading - When Timber structures are exposed to loads in a period
of time it will experience a significant loss of strength and stiffness.
According to Hoffmeyer in 10 year load duration can cause approximately 40%
of strength loss for solid wood and 80% for some wood based panel products.
This creep-rupture phenomenon is often called the DOL effect or Duration of
load effect. It has been subject of particular interest for everyone in the timber
engineering community concerned in safety and efficiency of engineering
designs since the old times. Many studies and investigations took place but
among them, Madison is one who stands out. Wood (1947, 1951) published his
results on 25 x 25 x 410 mm beams subjected to a constant three-point load in
bending. He also included short-term ramp load test results from Markwardt
and Liska (1948) and Liska (1950) as well as impact tests by Elmendorf (1916).

As a result, Wood became the basis for the assignment of DOL factors in the
US timber design code and it is also the basis of all later DOL research results.
The master curve that relates all three types of experiments is now commonly
known as “The Madison Curve”. This is an empirical curve that describes the
time to failure as a function of the stress ratio and it was chosen to fit three pre-
selected points that corresponds to: Impact loading: stress ratio is 150 percent
at a time-to-failure of 0.015 seconds, Short-term ramp loading: stress ratio is
100 percent at a time-to-failure of 7.5 minutes, Long-term loading: stress ratio
is 69 percent at a time to failure of 3750 hours

Madison Curve Equation:

SL = 18.3 + 108.4 tf ^ -0.0464

Wherein:

SL - actual stress level over predicted short-term strength

tf - time to failure in seconds.

 e.) Size and shape of wood member - The area or part of wood under stress affect
whether the wood can resist that force or not. The strength of timber decreases
with size, because the larger the stressed volume, the higher the probability that
a weak link occurs in the volume. This means that, in general, size effect causes
small members to have greater unit strength than large members. Size effect
makes strength grading more complex, because the influence of different
parameters depends on the cross-section size. The probability of failure is
influenced not only by geometry and size of
element but also by load conditions and load configuration.

Reference :

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/growth-
ring?fbclid=IwAR3jwXZ5pFhumCZ7MyB2yI6J3AiJ-52L-
Zoh77SLFEH7Z2_ISUxWiDyxJ-s

https://www.scienceabc.com/nature/why-does-wood-have-knots.html?fbclid=IwAR2-
ZZjfYPqai8ajZH230-qCrbgrvnr1QnFGx9qVn6KItb3VQCP4dWi6Fmg
http://www.km.fgg.uni-lj.si/coste24/data/CoimbraDocuments/Coimbra-larsen.PDF

https://is.mendelu.cz/eknihovna/opory/zobraz_cast.pl?cast=19436

http://www.km.fgg.uni-lj.si/coste24/data/CoimbraDocuments/Coimbra-larsen.PDF

https://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/pdf2001/green01d.pdf