The fracture of wood under impact loading

S. Mindess, B. Madsen
Professors, Department of Civil Engineering, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

High speed motion picture photography was used to study the fracture, under impact
loading, of wood beams. Photographs were taken at the rate of 500 frames per second,
which permitted the crack development during the fracture event to be monitored. Load vs.
time data during the test were also recorded. This paper presents a photographic record of
the crack patterns which developed when the beams were tested in an instrumented impact
machine.

INTRODUCTION located near the bottom face, about 50 mm away from

the line of impact, but was otherwise clear.
The effect of loading rate on the strength of wood
2. Impact apparatus
has been studied extensively in recent years ([1]-[3]),
but very little work has been carried out on the beha- An instrumented, drop-weight impact machine, desi-
viour of wood under impact loading (that is, at extre- gned and constructed at the University of British
mely high loading rates), where the time-to-failure of Columbia, was used in these tests. The striking tup is
the specimen is measured in milliseconds. A sumary of instrumented with electrical resistance strain gauges, so
the very early work on impact loading is provided by that the load vs. time curve can be recorded using
Kollmann [4]. Subsequently, Kloot [5], using an Izod a high speed storage oscilloscope. The cross-sectional
impact machine, found that it was not possible to dimensions of the tup itself are 150 mm wide by 25 mm
develop a relationship between the impact strength and thick, with a rounded striking edge. The velocity of the
the moisture content of wood. Drow, Markwardt and hammer at impact can be measured by means of a
Youngquist [6] compared two different types of impact photocell which successively passes small holes set
tests, and found that impact energy values appeared to 100 mm apart as the hammer falls. An overall view of
depend on the type of apparatus used. Finally, Keith the apparatus is shown in figure 1.
[7] measured the impact resistance of specimens cut
from different regions of a large log.
While there is now at least some information on the
effect of impact loading on the strength characteristics
of wood, little is known about the development and
growth of cracks in wood under impact loading, or
about the resulting crack morphology. The purpose of
the present work was to provide a photographic record
of the development of cracks when wood beams were
subjected to impact loading.

EXPERIMENTAL TECHNIQUES

I. Specimens
The impact specimens were all of spruce wood. They
were in the form of beams 914 mm long, 134 mm deep,
and 38 mm wide. Three different specimens were tested:
the first was completely clear wood; the second was
clear wood, but with a 35 mm long notch sawn into
the bottom face of the beam directly below the point Fig. 1. - - Overall view of the instrumented impact apparatus. The
of impact; and the third specimen has a large knot total height of the frame is about 4.5 nL

0025-5432/86/01 49 05/$ 2.50/9 BORDAS-GAUTHIER-VILLARS 49

V o l . 1 9 - N ~ 1 0 9 - M a t ~ r i a u x et C o n s t r u c t i o n s
Fig. 2. - - Impact fracture of clear wood, for about the first 38 ms
after impact.
3. T e s t p r o c e d u r e
The specimens were simply supported, and tested on
. a 610 mm span, with the impact hammer striking them
at mid-span. For these tests, the weight of the hammer
was 345 kg, and the drop height was 610 mm. Since
the bearings guiding the hammer are almost frictionless,
this gave a hammer velocity at impact of about 3.3 m/s.
To aid in the visual monitoring of crack development,
one side of each specimen was marked with a 10 mm
square grid.
4. C a m e r a
To record the impact event, a motion picture camera
capable of operating at 500 frames per second was
used; this provided photographs at 2 ms intervals. In
general, it was found that the total impact fracture
events occupied about 20 to 40 ms (i.e. 10-
20 consecutive frames). The peak load, however, occur-
red at about 10-15 ms after initial contact between the
striking tup and the specimen.
50
EXPERIMENTALRESULTS
The photographic record of the fracture due to
impact loading is shown in figures 2-4. On each figure,
the numbers on each separate photograph refer to the
time, in ms, after the initial photograph (numbered
0 ms) taken just before the striking tup contacted the
specimen. Only the central portion of the specimens is
shown.
Figure 2 shows the fracture of the clear spruce, with
first contact occurring just prior to 2 ms after the initial
photograph. It may be seen that the damage initially
was almost entirely due to crushing of the wood at the
point of impact, with the striking tup digging itself
about 70 mm into the top of the board, with extensive
cracking in this area. Only at about 18 ms did the first
tensile failure occur at the bottom of the specimen. By
about 24 ms, the tensile crack had extended upward to
run into the zone of damage associated with the
crushing around the point of impact. Beyond that time,
the crack simply widened till the specimen broke into