Multi-physical modeling and numerical simulation of the thermo-hygro-mechanical treatment of wood

Abstract

AbstractThe contribution at hand introduces computational modeling and realistic simulation concepts for a comprehensive description of the manufacturing and application of densified wood and wooden structures made from molded densified wood. Wood, as a natural material, is characterized by e.g. a very good mechanical load-bearing capacity related to its density. Nevertheless, the ratio between its mechanical properties and its density can be optimized by densification technology for an expanded use of wood in structural engineering. The wood densification process is not only a mechanical process with large and irreversible deformations, it is also denoted by temperature- and moisture-dependent treatments of the wooden specimens. Thus, the introduced approaches to predict the material and structural characteristics of compressed and molded wood consist of an inelastic and multi-physical constitutive modeling of wood at finite deformations as well as the computation of effective structural properties of wood after the thermo-hygro-mechanical densification process. A successful implementation of the modeling concepts into the finite element method (FEM) is presented, which is verified by numerical investigations. A validation of the numerical results is carried out by use of experimental data at beech wood (Fagus Sylvatica, L.), taken from literature.