TOPIC

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Timber as a
construction
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Introductio
Wood, because n
of its availability, relatively low cost,
ease of use, and durability (if
properly designed), continues to be an important civil engineering
material
Wood is used extensively used for buildings, bridges, utility poles,
floors, roofs, trusses, and piles.
Civil engineering applications include both natural wood and
engineered wood products,
such as laminates, plywood, and strand board (flakeboard).
Wood is a natural, renewable product from trees
Trees are classified based on their growth:
 Endogenous – trees that grow with intertwined fibers, eg palm trees
 Exogenous - grow from the center out by adding concentric layers
of wood around the central core
Endogenous trees are not generally used for engineering
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Introductio
n

Laminated Floor

Ceiling
Strand board
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Introductio
Exogenous trees are n
broadly classified as:
 Deciduous – trees that produce hardwoods
 Conifers – trees that produce softwoods
In general, softwoods are softer, less dense, and easier to cut than
hardwoods
Deciduous trees generally shed their leaves at the end of each
growing season
Many hardwoods are used for furniture and decorative veneers, due
to their pleasing grain pattern.
The decorative properties of some hardwoods increase their
value and cost. This makes
them uneconomical for construction lumber.
Conifers, also known as evergreens, have needlelike leaves and
normally do not shed them
at the end of the growing season
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Structure of
Growth Rings
wood
Wood has a distinct structure that affects its use as a construction
material
The concentric layers in the stem of exogenous trees are called
growth rings or annual
rings.
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Structure of
The wood section wood
of the tree is composed of sapwood and
heartwood.
Heartwood is often darker colored and occurs at the center of the
cross section and is surrounded by sapwood.
Sapwood functions as a storehouse for starches and as a pipeline
to transport sap.
Generally, faster growing species have thick
sapwood regions. In its natural state, sapwood is
not durable when exposed to conditions that promote decay.
Heartwood is not a living part of the tree. It
is composed of cells that have been physically and
chemically altered by mineral deposits.
The heartwood provides structural strength for the tree. Also, the
heartwood of some
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Structure of
wood
Anisotropic Nature of Wood
Wood is an anisotropic material in that it has different and unique
properties in each direction
The three axis orientations in wood are:
 longitudinal, or parallel to the grain;
 radial, or cross the growth rings; and
 tangential, or tangent to the growth rings
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Structure of
wood
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Moisture
Content
Wood is composed of cellulose, lignin, hemicellulose,
extractives, and ash-producing minerals.
Cellulose accounts for approximately 50 percent of the wood
substance by weight
The moisture content of a wood
specimen is the weight of water in the
specimen expressed as a percentage of the oven-dry weight of
the wood
An oven-dried wood sample is a sample that has been dried in
an oven at 100°C to
105°C (212°F to 220°F) until the wood attains a constant weight.
Physical properties such as weight, shrinkage, and strength
depend on the moisture content of wood
Moisture exists in wood as either:
 bound - water held within the cell wall by adsorption forces
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Moisture
0
The level of
Content
saturation at which the cell walls are completely
saturated, but no free water exists in the cell cavities, is called
the fiber saturation point (FSP)
FSP varies from species to species and within the same species,
but is typically in the range of 21% to 32%
The FSP is of great practical significance, because the addition or
removal of moisture below the FSP has a large effect on
practically all physical and mechanical properties of wood,
whereas above the FSP, the properties are independent of
moisture content.
When the moisture content of wood is above the fiber saturation
point, the wood is dimensionally stable
However, moisture fluctuations below the FSP always result in
dimensional changes. Shrinkage is caused by loss of moisture
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Production of wood
1 A vast industry has developed to harvest and process wood from
forests as logs.
They are transported to saw mills, where they are cut into
dimensional shapes to
produce a variety of products for engineering applications that
include:
 Dimension lumber is wood from 2 in. to 5 in. thick, sawn on all four
sides and lengths of 8 ft. to 24 ft. Dimension lumber is typically used
for studs, sill and top plates, joists, beams, rafters, trusses, and
decking.
 Heavy timber is wood sawn on all four sides; common shapes include
6*6 and 8*8 and larger. Heavy timber includes Beams and Stringers
(subjected to bending) and Posts and Timbers (used as posts or
columns). Heavy timbers are used for heavy frame construction,
landscaping, railroad ties, and marine construction.
un
 Round
it stock - consists of posts and poles used for building poles,
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Wood cutting
2 techniques
 Sawn wood production includes the following steps:
 Sawing into desired shape
 Seasoning
 Surfacing
 Grading
 Preservative treatment (optional)
Sawing
 Process of cutting harvested wood into lumber and timber at saw mills
 The angle between the growth ring and the saw blade produces three
categories of board cuts,
1. Flat-sawn, 45° or less
2. Rift-sawn, 45° to 80°
3. Quarter-sawn (vertical- or edge-sawn), 80° to 90°
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Wood cutting
3 Seasoning techniques
 This is the a controlled process that removes the excess moisture
from wood
 For structural wood, the recommended moisture content varies
from 7% in the dry states to 14% in the damp regions
 Wood is seasoned by air and kiln drying
 Air drying is inexpensive, but slow. The green lumber is stacked in
covered piles to dry
 After air drying the lumber may be kiln dried
 A kiln is a large oven where all variables can be closely monitored
 Care must be taken to slowly reduce the moisture content of wood.
 Drying too rapidly can result in an increase in cracking and warping.
 Dried lumber will take on moisture again if exposed to water;
therefore, care must be used
when storing and transporting wood
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Wood cutting
4 techniques
Surfacing (Planing)
 This is the planing of the wood surface to produce a smooth face
 It can be done before or after drying.
 Post drying surfacing is superior, because it removes small defects
developed during the drying process.
 When surfacing is done before seasoning, the
dimensions are slightly increased to compensate
for shrinkage during seasoning.
Grading of wood
 Involves grading the lumber according to quality.
 Typically, lumber is graded according to the characteristics that affect
strength, durability, or
workability.
 The most common grade-reducing qualities of lumber are knots, checks,
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Wood cutting
5 Grading of techniques
wood

According to American Forest & Paper Association

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Wood cutting
6 techniques
Preservative Treatment
 Petroleum-based solutions (Coal-tar creosote, petroleum creosote,
creosote solutions, and pentachlorophenol solutions are), and
waterborne oxides (salts such as ammoniacal copper arsenate,
chromated copper arsenate (CCA) and ammoniacal copper zinc
arsenate) are the principal types of wood preservatives.
 The degree of preservation achieved depends on the type of
preservative, the degree
of penetration, and the amount of the chemical retained within the
wood.
 Effective preservatives must be applied under pressure to
increase penetration into the
wood.
 The advantages of the waterborne preservative over the oil-based are
cleanliness and its ability to be painted. The disadvantage of some of
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Defects in
7 Lumber
 Lumber may include defects that affect either its appearance, its
mechanical properties, or both.
 These defects can have many causes, such as:
 natural growth of the wood,
 wood diseases, animal parasites,
 too rapid seasoning, or
 faulty processing
 Common defect types include:
 Knots – Knots are branch bases that have become incorporated into
the wood of the tree trunk or another limb. Knots degrade the
mechanical properties of lumber, affecting the tensile and flexural
strengths
 Shakes – are lengthwise separations in the wood occurring between
annual rings. They develop prior to cutting the lumber and could be
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Defects in
8 Lumber
 Common defect types include:
 Wane – This is bark or other soft material left on the edge of
the board or absence of material.
 Sap Streak - is a heavy accumulation of sap in the fibers of the
wood, which produces a distinctive streak in color
 Reaction Wood - abnormally woody tissue that forms in
crooked stems or limbs. It causes the pith to be off center from
the neutral axis of the tree. It creates internal stresses which
can cause warping and longitudinal cracking.
 Pitch Pockets - are well-defined openings between annual
rings that contain free resin.
 Bark Pockets - are small patches of bark embedded in the
wood. These pockets form as a result of an injury to the tree,
causing death to a small area of the cambium. The
surrounding tree continues to grow, eventually covering the
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Defects in
9 Lumber
 Checks - ruptures in wood along the grain that develop
during seasoning. They can occur on the surface or end of a
board. Surface checking results from the differential
shrinkage between radial and tangential directions and is
confined mostly to planer surfaces. Cracks due to end
checking normally follow the grain and result in end
splitting.
 Splits - are lengthwise separations of the wood caused by
either mishandling or
seasoning
 Warp - is a distortion of wood from the desired true plane.
The four major types of warp are bow, crook, cup, and twist.
Bow is a longitudinal curvature from end to end. Crook is
the longitudinal curvature side to side. Both of these
defects result from differential longitudinal shrinkage. Cup
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Defects in
0 Lumber
 Raised, Loosened, or Fuzzy Grain - may occur during
cutting and dressing of lumber.
 Chipped or Torn Grain - occurs when pieces of wood are
scooped out of the board surface or chipped away by the
action of the cutting and planing tools.
 Machine Burn – This is when an area that has been
darkened by overheating during cutting.
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Defects in
1 Lumber
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Physical and Mechanical
2 Propertie
 Important physical
properties include: s
 specific gravity and density,
 thermal properties, and
 electrical properties
 Typical mechanical properties of interest to civil and construction
engineers include:
 modulus of elasticity - stress–strain relation of wood
 strength properties - modulus of rupture in bending,
compressive strength parallel and perpendicular to the grain,
tensile strength parallel to the grain, and shear strength
parallel to the grain.
 creep – permanent sag in a wood member
 damping capacity – measure of amplitude of vibration in a
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