Strength and Fracture Characterization of Welded Wood Joints

Wood is a naturally growing material used from ages, but the applications for a single wood piece are limited by the shape and girth of the tree from where the piece is derived. Assembling wood pieces together enables working around this issue. Development in the last 10 years have highlighted the possibility to weld wood instead of the more classical mechanical fastener or polymeric adhesive already known as bonding techniques. While offering high processing speed and ecological advantages, past research have reported poor water resistance of the welded joint. Furthermore, high scatter of the mechanical properties and a lack of quantitative dependence with moisture content prevent performing accurate prediction regarding the joint failure. The aim of this work is to investigate the fracture behavior of the welded joint in a range of moisture content below the fibre saturation point. Combined experimental and numerical work are use to characterize the effects of moisture content and mixed mode loadings and a finite element model is suggested to predict crack propagation in the welded joint.