Fracture properties of wood and wood composites

Abstract

Wood has a complex hierarchical structure and is a kind of polymeric composite with elongated cells in an amorphous matrix. Therefore, fracturing is a complicated process that is influenced by loading mode and direction, humidity, etc Standard linearelastic fracture mechanics methods mostly cannot sufficiently quantify fracturing, and combining fracture mechanical with structural investigations at different levels of magnification (centimeter to nanometer levels) helps obtaining insight into the fracture mechanisms.