Influence of Specimen Size on Accelerated Weathering of Laminated Veneer Lumber

Moisture intrusion can be significantly higher along specimen edges, particularly at edges where longitudinal grain is exposed, which is referred to as the edge effect. The influence of edge effects on moisture durability are assumed to decrease as the edge area to total-surface-area ratio decreases...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inForest products journal Vol. 69; no. 1; pp. 70 - 80
Main Authors Way, Daniel, Kamke, Frederick A, Sinha, Arijit
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Madison Forest Products Society 22.03.2019
Subjects
Adhesives
Aging
Bond strength
Crack propagation
Design of experiments
Durability
Edge effect
Forest products industry
Influence
Intrusion
Investigations
Laboratories
Lumber
Mechanical properties
Moisture
Product development
Properties
Quality control
Vacuum
Water absorption
Weathering
Wood
Wood composites
United States
United States > US
Virginia
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Summary:Moisture intrusion can be significantly higher along specimen edges, particularly at edges where longitudinal grain is exposed, which is referred to as the edge effect. The influence of edge effects on moisture durability are assumed to decrease as the edge area to total-surface-area ratio decreases. Moisture durability assessment of laminated veneer lumber (LVL) is commonly evaluated using accelerated weathering (AW) and outdoor exposure methods, where small specimens are analyzed. The influence of specimen size (i.e., edge effect) on moisture durability evaluation of LVL was investigated in this study. To vary specimen size, three widths with constant length and thickness were evaluated. In addition, three AW methods were used to characterize how the method of inflicting degradation influenced edge effects. No consistent trends in mechanical property loss were found across AW methods, indicating that the influence of specimen size varied with AW method. The greatest influence of specimen size occurred when cyclic vacuum-soak-dry was included, where water absorption decreased significantly with increasing width, and three of four mechanical properties evaluated displayed an influence of specimen size. The smallest influence of specimen size occurred when a single soak-dry procedure was included, where only one of four mechanical properties evaluated displayed an influence of specimen size. Results from this study provide evidence that edge effects may occur during LVL moisture durability assessment but that the severity is dependent on AW conditions.
ISSN:0015-7473
2376-9637
DOI:10.13073/FPJ-D-18-00035