Investigating the structures and mechanical responses of common construction and exotic woods

Wood species such as the softwoods pine, spruce and fir, and hardwoods such as oak are commonplace woods used in construction across the world. In Asia especially, the use of wood-analogues such as bamboo and coconut are also commonly used. This experiment aims to primarily catalogue the structures of these natural composite materials with high-resolution propagation-based X-ray microtomography, as well as similarly catalogue rarer or more exotic wood species. The commonplace woods will also be subjected to 3-point bending in-situ in order to characterise their mechanical properties in view of their respective structures .