Evaluation of the effect of fatigue on the modulus of elasticity in static bending of plywood panels

ABSTRACT The panels have been increasingly used in civil and rural buildings, among others, especially those plywood panels by good mechanical performance. In many applications, panels may be subject to cyclic loading, and thus, the knowledge of the effect of fatigue is of fundamental importance. However, the standards ABNT NBR ISO 2426 [12], NBR ISO 1096 [13], NBR 9489 [14] and NBR 9533 [15] which have the classifications and test methods for panels, do not consider the effect of fatigue in material properties, which motivates the development of researches in this area. The objective of this work was to evaluate the effect of the number cyclic fatigue load (NC) (0 - reference, 3600, 7200, 22500, 45000, 67500, 90000) for the oscillation frequency equal to 1.0 Hz in the bending modulus of elasticity (MOE) of commercial eucalyptus plywood panels. Six specimens were fabricated for each number of cycles, resulting in 36 samples. The results evidenced significant reductions of the MOE from 22500 cycles, implying that 0, 3600 and 7200 cycles provided statistically equivalent results. The logarithmic regression model was the most representative (R² = 64.28%), presenting as an alternative in the prediction of the MOE decay for fatigue cycles higher than those evaluated in this study.