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ARTICLE

Strength Degradation of Wood Members Based on the Correlation of Natural and Accelerated Decay Experiments

Xueliang Wang¹, Qiangang Xu¹, Xiuxin Wang¹, Junhui Guo², Wancheng Cao¹, Chun Xiao^3,*

1 Hubei Key Laboratory of Roadway Bridge & Structure Engineering, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan, 430070, China
2 School of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Life Sciences, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan, 430070, China
3 School of Automation, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan, 430070, China

* Corresponding Author: Chun Xiao. Email:

(This article belongs to this Special Issue: Bio-composite Materials and Structures)

Journal of Renewable Materials 2020, 8(5), 565-577. https://doi.org/10.32604/jrm.2020.09020

Received 04 November 2019; Accepted 16 January 2020; Issue published 29 April 2020

Abstract

An accelerated decay test and a natural decay test were conducted synchronically to explore the strength degradation of decaying wood members under long-term exposure to natural environment. A natural decay test was carried out to measure the bending strength, compressive strength parallel to grain and modulus of elasticity of the wood members, with 6 groups of specimens decayed in natural environment for 3 to 18 months respectively. To compare with corresponding decay test, in which 6 other groups of specimens were measured under accelerated conditions. The experimental data collected were evaluated by Pearson productmoment for the correlation. The results indicate that the mechanical properties of the accelerated decay were highly correlated with those in natural environment, both of which decreased in the same trend. Under the given test conditions, the mean value of the accelerated decay test data were curve-fitted to achieve the time-dependent degradation model of the bending strength, the compressive strength parallel to grain, as well as the modulus of elasticity. Due to the high correlation, the acceleration shift factors (ASF) of the two tests were derived, where the bending strength of 2.934, the compressive strength parallel to grain of 2.519 and the elastic modulus of 2.346 were employed to formulate the strength degradation models in the long-term natural environment. The results verify that the exponential function σ = σ₀e^-βt enables to exactly capture the degradation of the mechanical properties of wood members decayed in natural environment.

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