Engineering models for decay of timber

Leicester, R.H., Wang, C-H., Foliente, G.C.1, Thornton, J.D.2, Johnson, G.C.3, Cause, M.4 and MacKenzie, C.5 ABSTRACT As a first step towards the development of an engineering approach to design for durability, it is necessary to derive predictive models of attack mechanisms. In this paper, data from field tests on small pieces of wood are used to estimate decay rates for hardwoods and softwoods of four durability classes on untreated timber, for preservative treated timber, and for a wide range of climates. The decay models derived need to be calibrated against the performance of full scale structures before they can be used for engineering purposes. INTRODUCTION Within Australia there is a major national project, sponsored by FWPRDC (Forestry and Wood Products Research Development Corporation) to develop an engineering approach to design for durability (Leicester 1999, Foliente et al. 1999). The first part of this project is to develop predictive models for structural attack by decay-causing microorganisms (usually fungi), termites and corrosion. For the case of decay three aspects of models are being developed to relate decay to the environment as follows: (i) (ii) (iii) Initiation of decay Rate of structural attack Pattern of attack

The following describes current progress in the development of models for attack by decay. THE DECAY MODEL Decay process For engineering purposes it is probably most convenient to classify decay fungi in terms of their effect on timber. The simplest classification of this type would be to classify fungi as causing brown rot, white rots and soft rots (Zabel and Morrell 1992). Some bacteria can also cause soft rot. However there are some situations, particularly in protected environments, where decay is predominantly by one or two species of fungi (Viitanen and Ritschkoff 1991) and here perhaps design against specific fungi may be considered. Fungal spores require the surface of wood be wet in order to germinate. In addition, the fungi requires that the wood be above the fibre saturation point for at least a month in order to establish a viable mycelial mat. Once the mycelial mat has been established, the growth rate of the fungus is dependent primarily on wood moisture and temperature conditions. For temperatures below about 5C the fungus will lie dormant, while at temperatures above 65C the fungus will be killed within a few hours. The lower limit of moisture content for growth to proceed occurs just below fibre saturation point, specifically at a moisture suction of about 1.5 MPa; the upper limit corresponds to a moisture content when 80% of the wood cell cavities are full of water (Zabel and Morrell 1992). The fungi appear to be most active
1

Chief Research Scientist, Research Scientist, Principal Research Scientist, respectively, CSIRO Building, Construction and Engineering, PO Box 56, Highett, Victoria 3190, Australia 2 Consultant John Thornton & Assoc, 35 Warana Way, Mt Eliza, Victoria 3 Principal Research Scientist, CSIRO Forestry & Forest Products, Private Bag 10, Clayton Victoria, Australia 4 Senior Timber Technologist, Queensland Forestry Research Institute, Dept of Primary Industries, PO Box 631 (Gate 3) 80 Meiers Road. Indooroopilly Qld, Australia 5 Technical Director, Timber Research and Development Advisory Council, Queensland, Australia

along the interface with the decayed wood. The decayed wood acts as a sponge that accumulates free moisture and moistens adjacent undecayed wood, thereby promoting further decay. A simple decay model can be developed by assuming that a decay front progresses at a rate given by dw/dt = f(M) g(T) (1)

where w denotes the distance to the decay front, and f(M) and g(T) are functions as shown in Figure 1 of moisture and temperature of the wood surrounding the decayed area.
Moisture function f(M) 80% of cell cavity filled with water Temperature function g(T)

Fibre saturation point

25 30

moisture content (%)

30 temperature (oC)

(a) moisture factor

(b) temperature factor Figure 1. Idealised components of a decay function.

Calibration The following are four sources of data that can be used for calibration of the decay model described by equation (1): (i) (ii) (iii) (iv) Laboratory experiments Measurements in an Accelerated Field Simulator Data from field tests on small pieces of wood Observations on full scale structures.

The FWPRDC projects comprises the following steps: (i) (ii) (iii) Data from field tests are fitted to idealised decay functions as shown in Figure 2; These idealised functions are correlated with climate and other environment factors such as soil type; The environment correlated data is then used to derive decay rates for engineering procedures.
d20 general case untreated timber in-ground 5 lag 20 time (years)

Depth of decay (mm)

Figure 2. Idealised progress of decay. FIELD TESTS The three types of test specimens used for field tests are illustrated in Figure 3. These are an in-ground stake (Thornton et al. 1991), an above-ground Climate Index Panel (Creffield et al. 1992) and an above-ground L-joint (Cause 1993). The in-ground stakes are unpainted. The Climate Index Panels are painted along vertical faces only. The L-joints are either unpainted, or painted on external faces only.

These tests were chosen to provide data for this project because they are assessed for soundness by probing with a penknife, a procedure that assesses structural integrity. The specimen condition is usually reported in terms of decay scores. For this study, each decay score has been converted to an equivalent value of decay penetration across a uniform front.
50 x 50mm 150mm

300mm 60mm

For the case of the in-ground stake the decay score is related to the loss of cross-section. For the climate index panel the decay score is related to the loss of timber in the longitudinal direction from the top and bottom edges and the saw cut. For the L-joint test it was assumed that loss of structural timber commenced at the decay score of 2 and that there was an effective depth of decay of 9 mm when the decay score was 0, i.e. when the decay had penetrated the 12 mm tongue of the tenon. For engineering purposes the test data were fitted to an idealised decay curve as shown in Figure 2. For comparative purposes the value of d20, the nominal depth of decay extrapolated to 20 years, is used. The test sites used are shown in Figure 4(a) and Figure 4(b). These sites cover a wide range of rainfall and temperature regimes.
10
0

(a) In-ground stake

76mm thickness =19mm

top edge sawcut

1.6mm 32mm 229mm

10

20

20

bottom edge (b) Climate index panel

30

30

40

CSIRO sites DPI sites

40

Mortice

200
10
0

(a) All sites

10
0

12 35 Tenon
20
0

Innisfail

20

Brisbane 30
0

30 Walpeup Sydney Melbourne 40

35

300
40
0

35

(c) L-joint test specimen

decay inspection zone

(b) CSIRO Long-term test sites

Figure 3. Wood specimens for field tests.

Figure 4. Site locations for field tests.

TEST DATA In-ground stakes In-ground stakes of untreated radiata pine sapwood were placed at every site used by CSIRO so as to obtain a rapid assessment of climate effects over a period of 3 years (19961999). In addition, some 3500 specimens of untreated, outer heartwood stakes were placed within the five sites (Thornton et al. 1991) shown in Figure 4(b), and monitored for a period of 31 years. Approximately 80 species were tested and grouped into four durability classes (Thornton et al. 1997). An example of the test data for a typical site is shown in Figure 5. The effect of site environment is shown in Figure 6.
120 Class 4 Class 2 Decay at 20 years [mm] Class 3 100 80 60 40 20 0 0 10 20 30 1 Time [years] 2 3 Durability class 4 Walpeup Innisfail Sydney Brisbane Melbourne

20 Depth of decay [mm] 15 10 5 0

Class 1

Figure 5. Measured 50-percentile values of decay of untreated in-ground stakes at Sydney.

Figure 6. Extrapolated 50-percentile values of decay at 20 years of untreated in-ground stakes for five sites, see Figure 4(b).

For investigating the characteristics of preservative-treated timber, three timber substrates were impregnated with 45 preservatives and placed at three sites (Beesley 1978). On each site there is approximately 5 specimens of each type; the tests have been monitored for 35 years. Typical data for a single preservative on a single site is shown in Figure 7; it illustrates strong time lag effects. These may be due either to succession colonisation or to leaching out of the preservatives. Figure 8 shows comparative effects between sites; in this Figure the K.55 Creosote is taken to give the retention equivalence of 1/20 that of CCA, i.e. a preservative retention of 20 kg/m3 of creosote is expected to give the same performance as 1 kg/m3 of CCA.
4 Depth of decay [mm] 3 2 1 12.0 0 0 10 20 Time [years] 30 40 19.2
Decay at 20 years [mm] 10

Preservative retention kg/m3

6.4

n creosote ? CCA Innisfail

6 4 2 0 0 10 20 CCA-equivalence retention [kg/m3] 30

Sydney Walpeup

Figure 7. Measured mean values of decay of CCA treated radiata pine sapwood inground stakes at Sydney.

Figure 8. Extrapolated mean values of decay at 20 years of treated radiata pine sapwood in-ground stakes for three sites, see Figure 4(a).

Figure 9 shows an equation empirically fitted to the measured decay of untreated and treated radiata pine sapwood at the Innisfail site. The equation is d20 = 150 / (1 + 4R)
20 Decay at 20 years [mm] 15 10 5 0 Innisfail-CCA Innisfail-creosote equation( 2)

(2)

where d20 denotes the decay after 20 years in mm and R denotes the retention in CCA-equivalence in kg/m3 of the preservative. The form of the equation indicates that even a small quantity of preservative has a considerable effect on decay resistance. Climate index panels There have been two series of tests incorporating the climate index panel on the 21 CSIRO test sites, Figure 4(a). In one series to be cited here, a set of 8 untreated and 2 treated species were subjected to a total of 12 years of exposure (Creffield et al. 1992). There were no replicates. A sample of the data obtained is given in Figure 10; it shows a comparison between the decay rate obtained at the three edges of the panel; it is seen that the decay at the bottom edge is about three times as great as decay at the other two.

10

20

30

Figure 9. Fitted equation for decay at 20 years for treated radiata pine sapwood in-ground stakes at Innisfail.

CCA equivalent retention kg/m3

L-joint tests The L-joint tests comprised nine untreated and one treated species set out at the 11 DPI test sites, Figure 4(a). There were 36 replicates of each species at each site, half of which were unpainted and the other half painted (Cause 1993). These tests have been monitored over a period of 11 years. A sample of the processed data is shown in Figure 11. It indicates that painted specimens tend to decay about 25% faster than unpainted ones.
Decay at sawcut and top edge d20 [mm] 15 Decay of painted specimens d20 [ ] Each point is based on data from a single species 10 150 Each point is based on data from a single species 100

5 sawcut top edge 0 0 10 20 Decay at bottom edge d20 [mm] 30

50

0 0 50 100 150

Decay of unpainted specimens d20 (mm)

Figure 10. Extrapolated 50-percentile value for 20 year decay of untreated species measured by the Climate Index Panel: comparison between decay zones.

Figure 11. Extrapolated mean value for 20 year decay of untreated species measured by L-joint specimens: comparison between painted and unpainted specimens.

ENGINEERING MODELS Predicted decay rates It is apparent that once the decay rates have been correlated with temperature and moisture parameters, they may be coupled with decay patterns to predict the loss of structural strength with time.

Within a group of similar in-ground stakes on the same site, the coefficient of variation was about 100%. If it is assumed that practical engineering member sizes have about ten times the cross-sectional area of the test stakes, then the coefficient of variation for engineering purposes could be taken to be about 100 / 10 30% . However it should be noted that there is considerable uncertainty in interpreting the test data to obtain decay rates. For practical application to practical structures this uncertainty is probably equivalent to a factor of about 2.

Environment factors Since the seminal work of Scheffer in deriving a climate index (Scheffer 1971), there has been remarkable progress in quantity of data available and in desktop computing power. Hence it would be a simple matter to compute more complex and more useful performance prediction parameters than the original Scheffer Index. For example, Figure 12 shows that the decay rates deduced from the exposed L-joint specimens correlate quite well with vapour pressure deficit according to the equation
60 Measured decay [mm] 50

d20 = 550 / (1 + 20 vpd)

(3)

where vpd denotes the annual average vapour pressure deficit in kPa.

For the case of in-ground elements, it is necessary to consider not only climate factors but also soil parameters. For this case, simple models for both heat and moisture transfer may be used to compute the 20 conditions of surface climate and the presence of water tables (Jury et al. 1991). As an example, Table 2 based on approximate 10 computations using typical soil properties (Rawls et al. 1991), shows 0 the depth of dry soil under equilibrium conditions, and the time taken for a soil to dry out following rain. The indications, verified by field 0 20 40 60 observations, are that timber buried more than half a metre anywhere Decay predicted by Eq. (3) [mm] except in deserts, will have sufficient moisture to progress the continuous growth of decay. Incidentally, the fact that both fungi and plants can access moisture only if it is at a suction of less than 1.5 MPa means that geographical limits of the growth of indicator plants, such as wheat, may be used to construct in-ground hazard maps. For the case of exposed structures, the modelling is more complex. The influences of paint skin, surface checking and solar heating all have significant effects on element moisture and temperature; climate parameters related to all of these effects must be considered. Modelling for protected construction, such as subfloor areas or cavity walls, is even more difficult. Since wood needs to be wetted to decay, it is necessary to model condensation, moisture leakage and ventilation effects. One interesting approach is to ignore the problem of predicting decay attack rates, and to focus on designing a construction so that the rate of moisture movement out of the construction exceeds the rate of moisture that enters (Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation 1999, Hazeldon and Morris 1999).

Figure 12. Extrapolated mean value of 40 20 year decay of untreated species measured by the L-joint test: decay 30 predicted by the vapour pressure deficit.

Soil type 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. SAND loamy SAND sandy LOAM LOAM silt LOAM silty clay LOAM sandy clay LOAM clay LOAM sandy CLAY silty CLAY CLAY

Table 2. Examples of soil moisture relationships Dry depth (mm) Time to dry soil (days)

h2.0 = 0.1 MPa 20 24 28 33 32 51 47 56 66 66 71

h2.0 = 0.5 MPa 300 323 348 370 365 444 426 459 492 492 506

rainfall = 25 mm 300+ 300+ 300+ 72.5 9.5 81.5 316 33.5 300+ 59.6 74.5

rainfall = 2.5 mm 57.5 152.4 14.5 3.5 0.5 2.5 3.5 0.5 16.5 0.5 2.5

h2.0 denotes moisture suction at a depth of 2.0 m; the surface of the soil is taken to have a moisture suction of 100 MPa; soil is deemed to be dry when the moisture suction is greater than 1.5 MPa.

CONCLUDING COMMENT

In modelling attack by decay causing microoganisms for engineering purposes, a primary difficulty is the lack of information on the rate of attack by decay fungi. Some estimates of decay rates for in-ground and exposed timber have been derived using data from field tests on small wood specimens. The data cover a large number of both hardwood and softwood species, preservative-treated and untreated timber and a wide range of climates. The decay rates predicted from these tests are probably accurate only to within a factor of 2.0, and require field calibration from full scale structures before they can be applied to engineering applications. Some effects of painting and of specimen configuration are cited.
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