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Fatigue properties of wood in tension, compression and shear

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Abstract

The fatigue properties of wood laminates have been investigated in tension, compression and shear. Fatigue lives in compression are significantly less than in tension, and S-N data at five R ratios has yielded a set of constant-life lines, the form of which is related to the failure mode of the wood observed by scanning electron microscopy. A point of inflection in the constant-life lines at the transition between all compressive and partially tensile fatigue loading is a new observation. S-N curves for wood laminates have been produced for shear across the radial-longitudinal and tangential-longitudinal planes, and the latter plane is observed to be more resistant to fatigue loads. Samples with four times the cross-sectional area of standard-sized samples have been fatigued at R=−1 and no significant difference in fatigue life is apparent. It appears that the absence of a size effect in tension-compression results from the orthotropic structure of wood which is insensitive to variations in the density of surface flaws.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Materials Science, University of Bath, BA2 7AY, UK

    P. W. Bonfield & M. P. Ansell

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  1. P. W. Bonfield
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  2. M. P. Ansell
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Bonfield, P.W., Ansell, M.P. Fatigue properties of wood in tension, compression and shear. J Mater Sci 26, 4765–4773 (1991). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00612416

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00612416

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