Kaiser effect in historic timber elements

Abstract

Timber elements are major structural and architectural components in historic buildings and at the same time belong to the category of materials vulnerable to degradation. The recovery of 150-year old timber beams from a roof of a historic building made possible the non-destructive investigation of their response to cyclic loading. The experimental study carried out using the acoustic emission technique provided evidence that historic wood shows the load memory known as the Kaiser effect. The effect was observed for different loading and unloading time windows. The observations open up a new perspective for the determination of defects in wooden objects and constructions, important for assessing their possible structural instability. © 2013 The Author(s).