Viscoelasticity of aspen wood strands during hot pressing: Experimentation and modeling

Abstract

Abstract To improve the fundamental understanding of wood composite consolidation, the viscoelastic behavior of aspen wood strands is experimentally investigated for a range of temperatures (20–200°C) and moisture contents (0–15%). The results show that the strand stress relaxation modulus and time follows a linear relationship in a log-log plot. The strand stress relaxation rate is highly dependent on the imposed strain levels and the environmental conditions. A model for predicting the stress relaxation of wood strands is developed and compared with the experimental results. It will be useful to further predict the stress relaxation response of strand-based wood composite mats during hot pressing.