Measurement of the elastic properties of minute samples of wood along the

three material directions

Anh Tuan DINH12, Gilles PILATE3, Carole ASSOR12, Patrick PERRE12

1
AgroParisTech, LERMAB UMR1093, ENGREF, 14 rue Girardet, F-54042 Nancy, France
2
INRA, LERMAB UMR1093, ENGREF, 14 rue Girardet – F-54042 Nancy, France
3
INRA, UR AGPF, 2163 avenue de la Pomme de Pin - CS 40001 - Ardon
45075 ORLEANS CEDEX 2
Email : dinh@nancy-engref.inra.fr

INTRODUCTION
Wood is an anisotropic material whose physical and mechanical properties depend dramatically on the
material direction and on its structural features [2] (anatomy, cell wall macromolecule arrangement).
Thus, the development of experimental devices able to measure local properties of on well-identified
minute samples of wood is of great interest. In this context, original methodologies were developed to
measure mechanical properties of wood on micro-samples (a few millimetres) in longitudinal and
transverse (radial or tangential) direction. The measurements presented in this paper were performed
on samples cut from a poplar tree artificially bent for several years, which forced it to produce tension
wood. In addition to custom experimental devices, the whole approach required microsampling
methodologies to be developed, that enable accurate mechanical measurement on specific types of
wood and along the three material directions.

METHOD
I. Mechanical property measurement according to the longitudinal direction
In these tests, a device was conceived and built to perform a rigorous 4-point bending test on micro-
samples. The wood sample, which can be considered as a beam, is placed on two fixed cylinders, free
to rotate, and this wood sample defines the measurement length (L). The force is evenly applied on
two moving cylinders of same diameter separated by the length (l) (Figure 1). The force is applied
stepwise to the sample. For each load level, the beam curvature is measured without contact using a
laser micrometer. Due to the small sample size and to avoid creep effects, the forces applied to
samples ranged from 0 to 1.5 N, by steps of 0.1 N. Each step lasted 5 seconds. The comparison of
loading and unloading curves permitted us to validate that measurements took place in the linear
elasticity domain. The infradensity of each sample after drying at 103°C was also determined.

laser

F l

∆h

35 mm (L)

2 mm (R)
Wood sample
5 mm (T)

Figure 1 Experimental configuration for the 4-point bending tests.

From the experimental displacement / force curves, the Young's module was calculated using the
following equation:

l 2 (L − l) (where α is the slope of the displacement/ force curve)

E=
32 EI .α

II. Tensile tests along the radial and tangential directions

1. Experimental device
Tensile tests were performed with a manual tensile system, whose micrometer screw allows precise
increments. In these tests, the stress value, σ, is measured with a load cell, assuming the section to be
uniform and the strain value, ε, is obtained directly on the sample without contact using image
correlation. For this purpose, the optical microscope is set in reflexion mode and the sample surface
has to be carefully polished [7]. In the specific case of the tangential direction, because of their small
size, the samples have been glued to plastic jaws to facilitate their attachment to the bending device.
Particular attention was paid to the alignment of the jaws and the wood sample before they were
placed on the experimental apparatus. In the case of radial measurement, the sample size was
sufficient for direct fixing to the bending device. During the test, the apparatus itself was attached to
the stage of an optical microscope with two screws. This allows the position of the image to be
carefully chosen and this zone of interest to be tracked during the test (Figure 2).

Figure 2 : a) Our custom tensile device placed on the stage of the optical microscope and b) example of image
obtained in reflexion mode.

At each imposed displacement increment, the indication of the load cell is noted down and an image of
the sample is grabbed. These images were subsequently treated by an image analysis software to
determine the strain tensor in the focal plane of the microscope [5]. The Young's modulus of the
sample was finally calculated from the linear part of the experimental force/ deformation curve.
2. Measuring the strain tensor by image correlation using the software MeshPore
The software MeshPore, developed in LERMAB [8] was used to determine the cell deformation of
wood sample at each displacement increment. An initial approximation of the strain tensor was
obtained by contour integral of a chain of points plotted on the initial image and on the deformed
image (Figure 3). Depending on the image quality, three types of anatomical features have been used
to define the points of this chain [5]:

-the triple point which corresponds to the intersection of three cells;

- the mid-segment: the point situated halfway between two triple points. This was the solution adopted
when the image was of poor quality.
-the lumen centre.
 Figure 3 Correlation image by MeshPore

The approximate value of the strain field was subsequently refined using an inverse method. This
second step is the real image correlation procedure, whereas then first step allows us to avoid local
minima.

MATERIAL
The study was performed on a clone of Poplar (Populus) that was ten years old and that came from an
in vitro culture carried out by the Forestery Physiological and Genetical Improvement Unit (INRA,
Orléans). Planted in 1996, it was artificially bent from 1998 in order to let it produce a highly located
area of tension wood in the cross section. Considering the small tree diameter and its age, samples are
all in juvenile wood.
Three kinds of wood were collected in this tree: reaction (tension); opposite (180° from the tension
wood zone) and normal wood (90° from the tension wood zone). From an anatomical point of view,
vessels of tension wood are fewer and smaller in diameter than the opposite and normal zones.
Tension wood exhibits a more important fibre ratio and thicker cell walls with very rounded contours
that result to smaller cell diameter than opposite and normal ones. Microscopic observations of tension
wood fibres revealed the presence of a gelatinous layer, the so-called G-layer.

III. Sampling for tests in longitudinal direction

Sampling was prepared in two successive stages. First, wood was sawed in the radial and the
longitudinal directions by a circular micro-saw (Figure 4). The rotation speed and the sample advance
rate were 900 rounds/min and 250 µm /sec respectively. After, the previously machined block was cut
by a razor blade in the tangential direction.

Radial
direction Longitudinal
Bark direction

Saw by a circular
T1 -- T5 micro-saw

3rd ring
Tension wood

N1--N4
Heartwood
Cut by a
razor blade

O2-I & O2-II

O1-I & O1-II

Figure 4 Sampling for tests in longitudinal direction

In a second stage, the previously sample was polished in their longitudinal direction (direction of their
length). A rigid sample holder was designed to obtain a constant thickness along the entire length
(Figure 5).

Fixation by screws

va
ria

0.9mm
mm

b
le
45
4 0-
Flexible plate
Sample location
Figure 5: Sample holder used for to polish the machined blocks at a constant section.

The size of wood samples was 35 x 1.8 x 0.9 mm3 according to longitudinal, tangential and radial
direction respectively.
IV. Sampling for tests in transverse directions
Samples were prepared with a diamond wire saw which produces parallel faces. For each type of
wood, two blocks were taken: one in the tangential direction and the other in the radial direction
(Figure 6). From these blocks, thin bars (longitudinal thickness) were cut at constant thickness.

transverse plane
tangential
direction

radial direction

Figure 6 : Sampling in radial and tangential directions.

One of the wood cross section was then polished to allow microscopic observations during tensile
tests. This operation was done with the same sample holder to ensure a uniform thickness over the
entire sample (Figure 5).
 RESULTS

(a) (b)
4
1800
Young's modulus (10^4 Mpa)

1600
3.5 T1

Young's modulus (MPa)

T2 1400
E_rt
3 1200
T3 E_ro
T4 1000 E_rn
2.5
T5 800 E_tt
2 N1 E_to
600
N2 E_tn
400
1.5 N3
200
N4
1 O1 0
0.4 0.45 0.5 0.55 0.6 O2 0.4 0.45 0.5 0.55 0.6
Density(g/cm3) Density (g/cm3)

Figure 7: Young's modulus of tension (T), normal (N) and opposite (O) wood in the longitudinal (a), radial and
tangential (b) directions in relation with their density.

Tableau 1 : Specific modulus of tension (T), opposite (O) and normal (N) poplar wood in radial (R), tangential
(T) and longitudinal (L) directions.
(c) (a)
E R ET EL Density E' R E'T E'L
T 1 143 416 34 300 0.55 2 078 756 62 364
(b)
SD 111 60 1 400 0.02
O 1 170 478 15 500 0.47 2 489 1 017 32 979
SD 269 109 2 000 0.05
N 1 484 573 18 200 0.43 3 451 1 333 42 326
SD 75 65 2 600 0.04
(a)
E’: Specific modulus (Mpa.kg-1.m3)
(b)
SD: Standard deviation
(c)
E: Young’s modulus (MPa)
Density (g/cm3)

In the longitudinal direction, the variability of Young's modulus in the differences samples of each
type of wood (tension, normal and opposite wood) is low compared to the transversal direction.
Particularly, in the case of opposite wood, the standard deviation of the Young's modulus is rather
high; the Young's modulus is variable despite the proximity of all samples to the same annual ring.
This could be due to the fact that, as ring widths are very narrow in opposite wood, the sample can
easily involve adjacent annual rings. For normal wood and tension wood, quite good values of
standard deviation have to be noticed.
In the longitudinal direction, the difference between tension wood and the group of normal and
opposite wood is huge, E=35000MPa for tension wood and E=17000MPa for opposite and normal
wood. On the contrary, the results in the transversal direction present low differences of Young’s
module, from E=400 to 500 MPa in the tangential direction (corresponding to the result of
L.Brancheriau 2002 [6] when the density varies from 0.43 g/cm3 to 0.55g/cm3, Etangential ~ 500MPa)
and from E=1200 to 1500 MPa in the radial direction [9]. Otherwise, we can see that normal wood
was more rigid than tension wood in the transversal direction (En/Et about 500MPa/400MPa in
tangential direction and about 1500MPa/1200MPa in radial direction). This could be explained by the
lack of cohesion of the G-layer with the rest of the wall [1]. In this case, the real part of tension wood
participating in the mechanical strength would be thiner than in the normal wood (S1 + S2 instead of
S1 + S2 + S3).
The wood anisotropy is even higher in tension wood (Elongitudinal/Etangential = 87 and Elongitudinal/Eradial = 30)
than in normal and opposite woods (45 and 10 respectively). This is due to the presence of the G-layer
[1] and its crystalline cellulose mainly oriented along the cell axis. Besides, the effect of weak
microfibril angle of the S2 and G-layer is also a possible reason for the high mechanical behaviour of
tension wood [3], [6].
 CONCLUSIONS AND PROSPECTS
Custom devices and the corresponding procedure (sampling and testing protocols) have been resented
here for the characterisation of mechanical properties of minute wood samples in their 3 directions of
anisotropy. Several improvements of this domain of experimental investigation are currently in
progress in our laboratory: compression tests with large deformations, characterisation of green
samples...

By its ability to produce very localize measurements, this methodology can be applied to many
questions of wood science: different type of wood, different tissues, but also sample with
homogeneous treatment (extraction, chemical attacks, enzymatic attacks, locally modified wood...)

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