CHAPTER ONE

1:0 INTRODUCTIONS

The importance of the project to the construction industry is to find the best usage of timber without
false.

We all know that tree look like, those are trees almost everywhere in our surrounding, gardens, farms
and street, the longer they are left the bigger and taller they grow. When they have grown to timber
size, they are cut down to producer what is commonly called wood or timber, Wood is one of the
commonest and widely use materials, yet may people who used it know very little or nothing about the
structure and properties of wood.

Timber is valuable as building materials for a number of reasons. It is structurally useful because it its
high strength in selections to its density. It is easy to worth to variety of shapes either by hand or
machines and can give a good finished appearance of a reasonable total cost. However, it is a product of
nature which comes to us in countless varieties of species and qualities, it must be properly processed
and selected to suit the work in hand.

Timber is an organic material (i.e. of carbon compound produced in growth processing of a lacing tree.
The main part of timber used in construction is the trunk increase as the tree develop and when the
three is thought to have reached maturity it is felled and the raw timber is invested (cut to plank) and
seasoned before use.

Timber is used to construct the floor and roofs of most houses and other small buildings because it is
cheaper to use either steel or reinforced concrete. It will have a useful life period of up to one hundred
(100) years or more.

The main reason of carrying out this project is that a longtime, observed that people do use timber in
their day-to-day construction, after sometime the structure will collapse without them knowing what
causes the structure to fail or collapse just after period of time, the above reason make it necessary to
take up this research in order to find out the causes of the failure and at some time the preventive
measures.

Timber is good shock observer, it is as excellent heat insulator, it can be nailed or glued fairy, easily to be
pointed or vanished, it is also resistance to chemical attack. Timber should be considered as a
constructional material that has more use in day-to-day life.

The benefit that society will gain in this project, at

the end of their research work are:

(i) The society will know that caused the failure in timber construction.
(ii) This research will also enable them to know the precautionary or preventive measures.
(iii) It will also enable the society to know how to apply these preventive measures or treatment, so
as to prolong the life period of the wood.

1.:1 AIMS ANDS OBJECTIVES

This research work is aimed to: -

i. Find out the causes of failure in timber construction

ii. Find the processionary on preventive measure to prevent timber from failure
iii. Find the best way of implementing or applying this preservatives treatment, which is done to
prolong the life period of timber in the construction industries, and,
iv. Enable the research to know more about timber, its causes of failure and preventive measure to be
taken when construction or when it is attack by destructive agents.

1:2 SCOPE AND LIMITATION

The intention of carrying out this research project is to prevent the failure of timber in the construction
industry and the study is limited to the biological damage, seasonal, fire and construction agents where
constructing of buildings when barriers can be easily unco-operated and suitably treated timber be
used. The study will carry out to find the damages done by these destructive agents, find remedies and
solution.

1:3 METHODOLOGY:

The plan of this research work involves physical observation on some of the construction project and by
observing the work on the affected are by destructive

CHAPTER TWO

LITERATURE REVIEW

2:0 STRUCTURE AND PROPERTIES OF WOODS INTRODUCTION

The chapter is aim at discussing he structure and properties of timber in construction; it is aimed at
studying the classification of timber, basic characteristic of timber, conversion of timber, preservation of
timber, seasoning of timber and causes of failure in timber structures.

2:0:1 GROWTH

The growth of timber, take place outward, let us to the seadling when it first appears above the ground
and look at the various changes which take place as the tiny shoot grows in to timber. The young
dealings contain globular-shaped cells which contain life quacking protoplasm which allow them to grow
up, for some time, the growth take place from the tip of the shoots but later on a larger of cells called
"cambium" is formed and this several divisions gives rise to the wood of the tree.

2:0:2 THE PARTS OF THE TREE

A tree consist of give (5) main parts:

1. ROOT:- The search for various minerals salts in the moist ground;
 2. TRUNK OR STEM: This parts act as a support for the branches;

3. BRANCHES: By forming as many as possible, the tree develops a great number of leaves;

4. LEAVES: these manufacture food for the through the action of sunlight and air;

5. BARK The bank protect the growing part of the tree from weather and animal and any other
injuries. When sunshine evaporates the moisture in the leaves, this cause a water of solution of
mineral salt to be absorbed through the roots and flow through the sep wood of the trunk and
branches to the leaves. This watery solution is called sap. The action of the sun light and air now
turns these mineral salts in the leaves in to a food of search and sugared which then flows down
through the inner bark or best to feed every part of the tree. If a tree felled, the cross-section
will show the following

features in fig. 1

Bark or cortex

Sapwood

Rays
Heartwood

Fig 1:1: A Cross sectional of felled tree

Cambium

Growth ring Wood is composed of cellulose, ungruin, and other minion materials about 60% of wood
unguis, is the cellulose which forms the main same work the cell wall, about 28% is the unguis which
from the bending agent that strofers the wall and bunds the wall together. 2:2 CLASSIFICATION OF
TIMBER

When wood is used in the manufacturing industry and the wood trades, it classified are either HARD
WOOD or SOFT-WOOD. How ever it is not be actual hardness or softness that separates the two(2)
classes as most soft word are harder than some hard woods. Howcan we then differentiate between the
two (2) types? This is done by looking at the appearance of the growing tress, and where there is not
possible, the structure of the wood is taken as basis of identification.

2:2:1 HARD -WOOD AND SOFT WOOD: HARD-WOOD OR DECIDOUS TREES: These trees have leaves.
Their seeds are enclosed

in cases; the tree shed their leaves attests every year. These trees produced timber used for furniture
and construction; they are growing in the temperature and tropical regions of the world. Nigeria is in the
tropical regions and so produces hardwood. Some example of Nigerian broad learned trees are Iroko,
Afora, Mahogang, Opepe, Omo etc.

SOFT WOOD OR CANIFEROUS TREE: They have needle like leaves, they are called coniferous frees or
canifer because they bear naked needs which are incones. They do not shed leaves like decision trees.
They are said to be evergreen because their branches always bear green leaves. This tree produces the
commercial softwood they do not grow in Nigeria but grow mostly in the cooker region of the world.

2:3: BASIC CHARACTERISTICS:

The arrangement and type of cells together with the present of different qualities of chemical
substances such as starch, sugar, gums, resins essential oils, tannins, etc give different kind of timber,
their special properties and characteristics.

DENSITY Density is expressed as mass per unit valume (Kg 1m). Density and cells deposits present in a
sample of a given volume and according to the position of the piece in the trunk. MOISTURE CONTENT
(MC):

Moisture content to the weight of moisture in a piece of wood and is exposed as a percentage of the
over dry-weight of the wood it greatly affects the weight and mechanical properties of the wood where
moisture content is above s-called "fibre-saturatuion point" (i.e 3% moisture content), there is little
change on the strength characteristics of the word.

SHRINKAGE AND WORKING OF THE WOOD:

One of the disadvantages of timber is that, it shrink

on drying and variation in shrinkage often stresses in the wood, which produces distortion and checking,
DURABILITY:

Durability refers to the natural properties of the wood which result attack by fungi, bacteria, insects (e.g
termites) and other organisms (e.g maline borers). The classification of timber in to durability classes
based on the expected service life or the tree wood of timber to be used outdoors in contact with the
ground.

It is generally accepted that natural durability is due to the chemical substance contained in the cells
(which are provolone to fungi and termites), and which are generally deposited during the formation of
the tree wood in the growing tree.

Timber that is kept below 20% moisture content will not decay produced it does not come in contact
with the ground and in under cover.

The term "Durable" is sometimes used when referring to the characteristics of timber which enable
the manufactured article to remain servicible for a long time (eg sentence to being, breaking, splitting,
brushing, abrasion, warping, heat and moisture. 2:4: CONVERSION OF TIMER:

Conversion is the process of sawn the longs with sawing machine into square edge poces of timber in to
commercial sizes or marketable sugar. The longs are usually converted in commercial sizes as soon as
possible after the tree has been felled to manager shrinkage damage. The newly converted timber is in a
green rough sawn state and has to be reasoned.

The method of converting long vary according to the class of timber, quality and sugar of the longs vary
and the market requirements. Consideration must also be given to the effects of shrinkage and
seasoning of sometimes.

The softer variable of timber, such as paper, silky, work, cedar and similar wood are generally sawn to
sawn for joining and furniture making, the harder and denser timber being

There are two (2) popular methods of conversions. There are: plan sawing and quarter sawing.

2:4:1 PLAN SAWING:

Also called through and through or (Tangential method), this is the method of simply sawing the longs
plank. Many operations proper this method because it is simple, quick and cheap way to convert longs
in to planks, suite to various needs. The method has the

following characteristics.

(a) It swells and shrink more in width than in

thickness

It wears unevenly

Irregular grain patters

More economical than right sawn

QUARTER SAWN:

(b)

(c)

(d)

2:4:2:

This is the method of conversion along the rays of

the wood. This method needs, more attention than the plain sawn, because the longs has to be trend,
the plank produce by this method are more stable and they produce stripe figures. It is a vary expensive
method and it involves a lot of waste.

It characteristics are:

(a) It shrink and swells more in thickness than in

width

Surface evenly

(b)
(c) It has noticeable grain pattern.

2:5: PRESEVATION OF TIMBER:

Termites, insects and fungi usually attack the rap wood because of the presence of starch and sugar
there. The attack also varies with the amount of starch and sugar content from wood to wood. To drive
those insects and fungi away from the wood, preservation is applead to it, which poison the wood.

Wood preservation is any process is used to prolong the service life of the wood and wood preservation
is chemical that is used to proven the wood.

2:5:1 TYPES OF PRESENTATION

There are three (3) types of preservations, there

are:

(i) OIL TYPE PRESERVATION

The most important in this group are creosote and coal-tar. They are used mostly for outdoor work as
they discolour the wood and cannot be easily painted.

(ii)

WATER SOLUBLE TYPE PRESEVATION

These are chemical such as sink, copper, sodium,

etc which can be dissolve in water. They are mostly used for treating woods used in buildings. If used
outdoors,
the chemical can be washed out by rain. (iii) SOLVENT TYPE PRESERVATION

These are chemical such as chlorinated phenols,

sodium pep etc which can only be dissolved in a volatile liquid live white spirit most of these chemical
are obtained already mixed by the manufacturers.

2:6 METHOD OF APPLYING PRESERVAIONS (a) BRUSHING AND SPRAYING

This is the easiest and less effective method of applying preservatives, the chemical will not penetrate in
to the wood by this method, only the outside of the wood will be protected to a little extent;

(b) DIPPING

This method is a little better than brushing and spraying. It involves allowing the timber to remain is a
bath of preservative usually from to seconds up to 3minutes.

(c) HOT AND COLD TANK

This involves the timber being headed in bath preservation up to 93°c for some times and the allowed to
cool. Penetration taker place during cooling. (d)

PRESSURE TREATMENT

This is the beast method of all, it involves placing

of timber inside an enclosed metal cylinder and chemical being forced in to the wood under a hig
pressure.
2.7 QUALITIES OF GOOD PRESERVATION

The qualities of good preservation are:

It must be poisonous to the destructive

It must be safe to handle

(i)

(ii)

(iii) It must be easy to apply

(iv)

It must be odorless

(v) It must be cheap and easily obtained

(vi) It must be chemically stable for long period

(vii) It must be permanent (i.e no hable to leak out of

evaporate)

2:8: SEASONING OF TIMBER

Longs contain a lot of water and are usually very heavy. The water may sometime be as much as half the
weight of the wood, the water in the wood is rap as moisture, when the long is sawn in to planks they
must be dried because wet timber is more exposed to decay, it is weaker is strength and more liable to
warp and split than dry timbers.

Seasoning is simply the drying out of the excess moisture from the wood, so that the timber in
conditional (or pre-sunk) before use in other words, seasoning reduces the moisture content of the
wood to a state of which it is in equilibrium with the relative humidity of the atmosphere where timber
is to be used.

As shrinkage is inevitable during drying, efforts are made to ensure that all the shrinkage has taken place
without undue distortion and splitting before the timber is in actual use.

The season for seasoning or rying of wood are: It makes timber more stable (i)

(ii)

It makes woods lighter in weight

(iii) It makes wood more durable because insects and fungi usually attack the starch in the wet sap.

(iv) It makes wood tales paints, polished brushing

more easily;

Corrosion of ferrous metals nails, sources, bolts

(v)

etc is reduced (vi) Penetration of preservations in improved

(vii) The timber is lighter in mass, more economical to transport and easier to handle than green
timber.

METHOD OF SEASONING

There are two (2) common ways of seasoning wood

There are:- Natural seasoning (Air drying seasoning) or

kills drying seasoning

(i)

NATURAL OR AIR-DRYING SEASONNING

This method involves attacking plank are on top of the other, with other process of wood called stacker
put between them. The stackers allowed free circulation of

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2:8:1

air all over the stack. The stack can either be under a roof in the open air. If in the open air, the area
chosen must be free from rubbish the stack must be about 450mm from the ground, the stack must be
dried. Air drying takes one year for every 25mm thickness of the

wood.

ADVANTAGES

(i)
It is economical for small suppliers

(ii) It requires little attention

(iii) It is free from object resulting from artificial

seasoning

DISADVANTAGES

(i)

Very lengthy process

(ii) Stacked timber may be damage by fungi and

insects

(iii) Moisture content

specification

(iv) Large stack of timber occupies space. ARTIFICIAL OR WIL DRYING SEASOING (i)

In this method, timber is stacked in the same way with air drying, but than placed in a special

heated
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can

not

be reduced

to

chamber, the method in artificial because air humidity and temperature can all the controlled, under
this process, the wood dried quicker. Apices of timber that will take up, to six (6) months to dry by air
will take only two(2) weeks by klin drying.

ADVANTAGES

(i)

(ii)

Faster than natural seasoning

Mass production of seasoning timber

(iii) Riqully control system

(iv) Moisture content can be reduced to specification

DISADVANTAGES
(i)

(ii)

It requires heavy capital

It requires skill labour

(iii) It is not economical for small suppliers

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