COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING, SCIENCE, AND TECHNOLOGY

DEPARTMENT OF CIVIL ENGINEERING

PEB801 – CAPSTONE DESIGN PROJECT 1

BACHELOR OF CIVIL ENGINEERING (HONOURS)
YEAR 4 SEMESTER1, 2021

PROJECT SYNOPSIS AND EXPRESSION OF INTEREST SUBMISSION

ON
REINFORCING CONCRETE WITH DENSIFIED TIMBER

RANDHIR MONEEL CHAND – ID: 2018000627

SUPERVISIOR: KARLS ANGELO RED JNR.
 Introduction
Timber densification is the transverse compression of a piece of solid wood to achieve a
permanent deformation of the cells which results in an increased density in the whole or a part
of the densified material. This is one of the ways of improving the properties of low-density
species, and it has been the subject of many studies during the past decades. In general, the
main goal of densifying wood is to increase its hardness and surface abrasion resistance, and in
some cases also to increase its strength and stiffness. The improvement of other properties,
such as electrical insulation, can open up additional applications.
Compared to other production and construction materials, wood has unique properties. Some
of them are advantageous, while others disadvantageous. On the one hand, wood has an
excellent strength to weight ratio, a low environmental impact, a low thermal diffusivity and an
organic appearance that is generally seen as an attractive feature. On the other hand, wood has
considerable shortcomings, mostly related to the natural intra- and inter-species variation, and
to wood-water interactions.
The strength analysis of the connections should always be considered when screwed or bolted
connections are used for mechanically attached reinforcement. The resistance of these
connections to temperature is of critical importance for timber structures. However, given the
relatively low mechanical properties of timber compared to that of the steel screws/bolts,
failure usually occurs in the timber material. Tightening parameters and the effects of excess
torque in bolts can produce significant damage to timber structures, especially when they are
made of softwood. Furthermore, defects around the area of reinforcement application on the
timber structures could compromise the effectiveness of the reinforcement.
This report provides details not only of the latest research findings related to the reinforcement
of the densified timber, but most importantly how these methods can be best used in practice.
Examples are given of the implementation of the various reinforcement methods which makes
this report more interesting to the practitioners, such as representatives of the timber
construction and building industry.
 Methodology
Experimental setup
Tensile strength
Procedure
The tensile properties of the densified hardwood were tested in the two directions
perpendicular to the grain; tangential (T) and radial (R).before testing, the specimens were
weakened by narrowing the cross-section of the centerpiece to 15mm width for radial
specimens and to 20mm width for tangential specimens to obtain failure in the densified
timber
Failure
Tension stress has to be considered parallel to the grain and perpendicular to the grain
directions. When the tensile capacity of the timber is exceeded, brittle failure occurs. However,
due to the low tension strength perpendicular to the grain of wood, which is almost zero due to
natural defects, failure under tension stress perpendicular to the grain occurs more often.
Therefore, wood products are mostly optimized to increase the tension strength perpendicular
to the grain. However tension stresses perpendicular to grain has carefully to be considered in
the design.
Compression test
Procedure
The compression test will be conducted according to DIN 52185 for compression parallel and
DIN52192 for compression perpendicular to the grain.
Failure
Failure under longitudinal compression stress occurs mainly in timber trusses, beams or
columns. Failure under compression stress perpendicular to the grain can also be described as a
ductile failure with plastic deformations and occurs mainly at supports or at loading points
where high loads have to be transferred, these plastic deformations can further lead to
eccentricities and load redistributions within the complete structure and therefore overstress
parts of the structure. The overall stability can also be influenced.

Shear test
Procedure
The shear strength can be determined by testing small clear timber block as recommended by
testing standards. The shear block test method allows the shear strength values to be obtained
free from influence of timber defects. Shear strength will be calculated on the basis of the
maximum applied torque. The stiffness will be obtained by conducting linear regression analysis
of the applied torque and the relative twist per length within the elastic region.
Failure
In most cases, bending stress and deflection limits govern the design of the members. But for
short beams, tapered beams or special loading situations the shear stress can be more
important. In general for beams, the shear stress reaches the maximum value close to the
supports. Additionally, end-notched beams and beams with holes can lead to shear stress
concentrations. Failure due to shear stress is characterized by a sliding of the fibers and thus
cracking parallel to the grain and is considered as a brittle failure. The cracks are mainly closed
and therefore hard to detect if they are not at the end of the beam.
 Literature review
To begin with, in 1944, a patent granted to Lundstrom (1944) indicated the possibility of surface
densification of wood, as opposed to bulk densification. While Lundstrom’s patent was focused
on specific furniture components, a patent granted to Elmendorf (1971) explored the possibility
16 of surface densification of wood in general. The list of patents mentioned here is far from
being complete, but it highlights that wood densification has been a subject of interest for
almost a full century.
In addition, Pizzi et al. (2005) chose an entirely different approach to achieve timber
densification. They placed two pieces of wood inside a wood friction welding machine,
separated by a layer of sunflower oil to avoid bonding of the surfaces by friction welding. When
the pieces were moved in relation to each other for 8 to 14 seconds under low pressure,
friction created heat and plasticised the wood surfaces. Once they were plasticised, the friction-
creating movement was stopped and an additional compressive force was applied to achieve
the actual densification. The pressure was maintained until the timber cooled to below 100°C.
The surface hardness was found to have doubled. Rautkari et al. (2009) continued with a similar
approach, using a single piece of wood fixed to a vibrating platen, while the other fixed steel-
platen was heated to a temperature of 100°C. The total process time was about 100 seconds,
and the surface hardness was doubled.
On the other side of the Atlantic, at Oregon State University (OSU), the group led by Frederick
Kamke became increasingly active, starting with the granting of a patent about viscoelastic
thermal compression (VTC) (Kamke & Sizemore 2004). VTC is similar to THM as it uses a
combination of heat, steam and pressure to densify wood. In a first step, the wood exceeds its
glass-transition temperature at elevated temperature and moisture conditions, after which the
wood is further plasticised by inducing rapid vapor decompression and removal of bound water
in the cell wall. The vapor decompression step is crucial for the successful plasticization of the
wood cells, and relies on the rapid movement of water out of the cell wall. To achieve the
optimal softening effect, the process and sequence of steps need to be well timed. The wood is
compressed in this softened state. This is followed by an annealing and cooling stage before the
pressing device is opened. A few years later, Andreja Kutnar and Milan Sernek from Slovenia
joined Kamke’s group and contributed substantially to the exploration of the VTC method
(Kutnar & Sernek 2007).
Furthermore, a similar approach was introduced by Lauri Rautkari at Aalto University. In one of
their studies (Rautkari et al. 2011), a density profile with a pronounced density peak close to
the surface was obtained with a press closing time of 30 seconds, after which the pressure 20
was held for 60 seconds before the wood was cooled. The hardness was approximately doubled
(Rautkari et al. 2013). In a similar study, with the same closing time paired with a holding time
of 10 minutes, an almost identical increase in hardness was obtained (Laine et al. 2013a).
Kristiina Laine’s doctoral thesis provides a good overview of the findings of the Aalto University
group (Laine 2014).
Moreover, the group led by Lauri Rautkari at Aalto University conducted several studies of the
density profile and morphology of densified timber. Laine et al. (2014) investigated the cell-wall
deformation due to densification in a heated press as a function of the pressing temperature
and the press closing time. They found that the deformation started in the early-wood regions
close to the abrupt border to the latewood, which are the weakest parts of the specimens
under radial densification. With increasing pressing temperature, the bulk of the deformation
moves closer to the heated surface. Cell wall fracture was not observed, indicating that the
surface density and thereby the hardness of the wood can be increased without damaging the
cell walls (fig 10).

In 2018, a group of researchers at FPL, the University of Maryland and the University of
California had an article published in the journal Nature, a feat that made a stir in the field of
wood modification. The authors had pre-treated bulk-densified wood of various softwood and
hardwood species with an aqueous solution of sodium hydroxide and sodium sulfite. This
treatment removed lignin and hemicellulose, and gave extreme levels of densification, resulting
in a more than tenfold increase in strength (Song et al. 2018).
 Discussion
Swelling and shrinkage properties of densified timber
The dimensional changes that convoy the shrinking and swelling of wood are main sources of
both visual and structural problems in densified timber. Shrinking and swelling occur as the
wood changes moisture content in response to daily as well as seasonal changes in the relative
humidity of the atmosphere, i.e., when the air is humid, wood adsorbs moisture and swells;
when the air is dry, wood loses moisture and shrinks.
Four factors account for most of the shrinking and swelling problems seen in densified timber.

 The timber was not dried to the proper uniform moisture content which subsequently
lead to excessive shrinkage,
 The construction is such that the timber is mechanically restrained from shrinking and
swelling
 Excessive drying takes place through the ends of the members.
 A design was used that accents visual differences in shrinking and swelling in members
oriented perpendicular to one another rather than minimizing them

The timber swelling reduces its strength. To reduce problems related to the initial moisture
content of the timber, the timber should be dried to a moisture content level consistent with its
final service environment. It should then be stored and manufactured under atmospheric
conditions that will maintain this level. Then, even though the timber will continue to shrink
and swell in service as the seasons change, the effects will be minimized.
 Conclusion
Due to the impact of different aspects like moisture changes, fungi and insect attacks, timber
beam elements can be damaged and resulting in lower capacity and larger deformations. High
stresses exceeding the strength limits can also lead to different types of failure cases, like
bending, compression, and tension or shear failure. Furthermore, changes in building use can
lead to a requirement for increased load bearing capacity in structural timber beam elements.
The analyses of several assessment reports showed, most damaged structural timber elements
present cracks in the grain direction due to any of the aforementioned cases.
During this project, several gaps in the field of wood densification have been identified, in
particular in terms of achieving the vision of mass produced densified wood products. The gaps
have been addressed with a fast continuous surface densification processes to greatly reduce
the set-recovery. These findings have set the stage for further research on the new band press,
facilitating a swift transfer of knowledge between small-scale research and continuous surface
densification with production-size wooden boards.
 Reference
Morsing, N. (2000). Densification of wood – the influence of hygro- thermal treatment on
compression of beech perpendicular to the grain. Department of Structural Engineering and
Materials, Technical University of Denmark, BYG-Rapport,
Kutnar, A., Rautkari, L., Laine, K. & Hughes, M. (2012). Thermodynamic characteristics of surface
densified solid Scots pine wood. European Journal of Wood and Wood Products.
Laine, K., Belt, T., Rautkari, L., Ramsay, J., Hill, C. A. & Hughes, M. (2013). Measuring the
thickness swelling and set-recovery of densified and thermally modified Scots pine solid wood.
Laine, K., Rautkari, L., Hughes, M. & Kutnar, A. (2013). Reducing the set-recovery of surface
densified solid Scots pine wood by hydrothermal post-treatment.
Miyafuji, H. & Fujiwara, Y. (2013). Fire resistance of wood treated with various ionic liquids (ILs).
Navi, P. & Pizzi, A. (2014). Property changes in thermo-hydro-mechanical processing.
Holzforschung.
Laine, K. (2014). Improving the properties of wood by surface densification. Doctoral thesis.
Aalto University, Finland.
Bekhta, P., Sedliačik, J. & Jones, D. (2018). Effect of short-term thermo mechanical densification
of wood veneers on the properties of birch plywood. European Journal of Wood and Wood
Products.