Author(s)

M. ŠEJNOHA, L. KUCíKOVÁ, J. VOREL, J. SÝKORA & W.P. DE WILDE

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the evaluation of effective material properties of wood. Since both mechanical loading and climatic changes play a crucial role in the prediction of wood response, we consider not only stiffness, but also non-mechanical properties driving the heat and moisture transport and thus indirectly addressing the swelling and shrinkage properties of wood. In this regard, classi- cal micromechanical models as well as numerical simulations based on the Extended Finite Element Method are examined. A special attention is devoted to the influence of microstructural details of the porous phase. To that end, the X-ray computational micro-tomography is adopted when seeking for information beyond the volume fraction of phases that can be identified at various levels of a hierarchi- cal arrangement of wood. A spruce wood is selected as one particular example to compare individual computational approaches.

Keywords

Conductivity, diffusivity, homogenization, microfibril angle, micro-tomography, Mori-Tanaka method, nanoindentation, stiffness, X-FEM.