Effective Material Properties of Wood Based on Homogenization

This paper is concerned with the evaluation of effective material properties of wood. Since both mechanical loading and climatic changes play a crucial role in the prediction of wood response, we consider not only stiffness, but also non-mechanical properties driving the heat and moisture transport and thus indirectly addressing the swelling and shrinkage properties of wood. In this regard, classical micromechanical models as well as numerical simulations based on the Extended Finite Element Method are examined. A special attention is devoted to the influence of microstructural details of the porous phase. To that end, the X-ray computational micro-tomography is adopted when seeking for information beyond the volume fraction of phases that can be identified at various levels of a hierarchical arrangement of wood. A spruce wood is selected as one particular example to compare individual computational approaches.