Predicting mechanical degradation indicators of silver fir wooden strips using near infrared spectroscopy

The management of ecological engineering structures making up a timber structure requires periodical evaluations, including the level of decay of the constituent parts of the timber structure. Methods exist to measure the level of decay in the laboratory or in the field. However, they are rarely suitable for the conditions of ecological engineering structures, or give partial information. The aim of this study was to predict two mechanical degradation indicators (\(Dw_{MOE}\) and \(Dw_{MOR}\)) of silver fir (Abies alba) wooden strips during microbial decomposition using near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS). For 1.5 years, the degradation of 180 squared wooden strips, 30 mm wide and 500 mm long, buried in a greenhouse near Grenoble, France (Altitude: 200 m) was monitored. \(Dw_{MOE}\) and \(Dw_{MOR}\) were set from the normalized losses in modulus of elasticity (MOE) and modulus of rupture (MOR), two mechanical properties classically used for timber-structure design. A calibration set of 109 samples was selected to build two separate predictive models of \(Dw_{MOE}\) and \(Dw_{MOR}\) using partial least square regression. The NIR-based models applied to a validation set of 47 samples indicated good prediction performance. The model has a root mean square error of prediction (RMSEP) of 0.15 and a coefficient of determination (\(r^2_p\)) of 0.79. The \(Dw_{MOR}\) model has a RMSEP of 0.13 and a \(r^{2}\)-value of 0.91. These results highlight the considerable potential of NIRS in assessing the extension of decay in wooden logs.