PAPER TITLE :MECHANICAL RESISTANCE OF ACETYLATED AND DENSIFIED BOMBAX WOOD

FUTA JOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN SCIENCE | VOLUME 12 NUMBER 1 2016

Paper Details

  • Author(s) : B. Olufemi, P. Hass , T. Keplinger and I. Burgert
  • Abstract:

The objective of this study was to investigate the influence of acetylation and densification on the mechanical properties Bombax (Bombax buonopozence) sawn wood. Samples were randomly selected for the following treatments: compression at 20% and 50% densification (D1 and D2) and acetylation (Ac). The density and mechanical properties of treated and untreated wood samples were determined. The mechanical properties evaluated include bending strength, compression strength, Brinell hardness, screw withdrawal and abrasion.The results revealed that density of the wood increased from 316 kg/m3 for the control to 361kg/m3 for the acetylated wood, 385 kg/m3 for the wood densified at 20 % compression and to 525 kg/m3 for the wood densified at 50% compression. The compression strength increased from 12.63 MPa for the control to 21.57 MPa for the wood densified at 20 % compression and 24.59 MPa for the wood densified at 50% compression and to 27.01 MPa for acetylated samples. There was no significant difference between the different treatments while there were significant differences in the control. The bending strength and modulus of elasticity (MOE) also increased from 32.41 MPa and 57.9 MPa and 96.6 MPa for wood densified at 50 % compression respectively. The treatments were significantly different. The screw withdrawal resistance increased from 47.32 N/mm2, for control to 55.44 N/mm2 for acetylated wood, 67.19 N/mm2 for wood densified at 20 % compression and 71.82 N/mm2 for wood densified at 50 % compression. The results of the different treatments were not significantly different while the control showsignificant difference. The results of the abrasion test revealed that the control lost 5.60 x 10-4 g/cycle, the acetylated samples lost 6.3 x 10-4 g/cycle, while the densified samples at 20 % and 50 % lost 5.19 x 10-4 and 3.59 x 10-4 g/cycle respectively. The results showed that the various treatments conferred some improvements on the mechanical resistance of Bombax wood which was an indication of possible expansion of its area of use.