Abstract:
Among biological agents, insect attacks may cause severe degradation of timber structures
in the service life of buildings which leads to lower mechanical performance and, thus, maintenance
problems over time. Additionally, compression perpendicular to the grain always features a weak spot
with respect to the long-term mechanical performance of timber members and joints. In the present
work, the respective strength and elastic modulus were thus investigated for insect deteriorated
wood. Following a standardized geometry, small samples degraded by anobiids were extracted
from beams made of sweet chestnut wood (Castanea sativa Mill.) that were removed from service.
Visual assessment of the external wood surfaces was then performed to identify areas infested by
insects. Afterwards, destructive monotonic compression tests were carried out perpendicularly to
the grain on the damaged area to determine the loss of compressive strength and elastic modulus.
The experimental results showed that the loss of compressive strength and elastic modulus might
be linearly correlated to the wood density loss for small samples infested by insects. Nonetheless,
future work should focus on determining accurately the density loss in the insect-deteriorated part
through non- or semi-destructive tests, in order to establish stronger relationships with the mechanical
properties loss investigated.
