An investigation of mechanical properties of linden green wood

Abstract This article investigates the mechanical properties of linden green wood, setting out the results of three approaches to assessing tree stability and strength aimed at improving the safety evaluation of living trees. Due to the high moisture content (MC) of green wood and its significant impact on its mechanical properties, data from dried specimens cannot be used to model green wood behaviour. The research was carried out on wood samples with both 40 % and 60 % MC. A non-destructive test (NDT) assessed specimens and measured their vibro-acoustic material properties. Subsequently, destructive static tests were conducted along the three main orthotropic axes of the wood samples. The resulting data led to the development of a bilinear orthotropic model and a comprehensive dataset covering both elastic and plastic material properties. Next, the material properties were optimised to compute and validate a numerical model using the finite element method (FEM). By refining the material properties, the FEM predictions closely matched the experimental results, with a maximum error of 5 %. This information on the wood’s experimental, FEM and NDT-derived properties offers an excellent basis for evaluating linden green wood for many applications.