Abstract

The aim of this study was to obtain tensile elastic modulus (EM) information for radiata pine (Pinus radiata D. Don) sapwood in tangential grain direction, over a temperature range of 70°C to 150°C for a wide range of moisture contents. Such information is scarce, probably because of difficulties with research equipment design and process control strategies to perform accurate tests. As expected, EM dramatically decreased with increasing temperature and moisture content. The results were modelled to yield a relationship between stress and strain. The results were also successfully transposed into a mastercurve based on temperature-moisture equivalence through a modified form of the Williams, Landel, and Ferry equation for amorphous polymers. This result is consistent with the view that wood is visco-plastic around the glass transition zone of the ligno-hemicellulosic matrix. It is demonstrated that moisture and temperature can play a significant role in reducing stress during drying, regardless of the drying time. Properties of wood, such as tensile elastic information at elevated temperatures, are important for mechanical design, distortion modelling and understanding the fundamental behaviour of wood in general.