This paper summarises parts of the research outcomes of a university-government collaborative project aiming at determining the capacity and reliability of veneer-based structural products manufactured from early to midrotation (juvenile) hardwood plantations logs. Two species planted for solid timber end-products (Eucalyptus cloeziana and Corymbia citriodora) and one species traditionally grown for pulpwood (Eucalyptus globulus) were studied for the manufacture of the new products. Focus of this paper is on LVL beams. To cost-effectively determine the nominal design bending strengths of the new beams, a numerical model was developed. The model was found to accurately predict the strength of LVL beams with an average predicted to experimental ratio of 1.00 with a low coefficient of variation of 0.10. Using an established probabilistic database of the material properties of the veneered resources as model input, Monte-Carlo simulations were then performed. The design strength of the new LVL beams was established and found to be comparable to, and in some cases up to 2.5 times higher than, the ones of commercially available softwood products. Recommendations are also made in the paper on the appropriate capacity factors to be used for various service categories of structures. The proposed capacity factors were found to be 5% to 12% lower than the ones currently used in Australia for beams manufactured from mature softwood logs
Rotary veneers from spotted gum (Corymbia citriodora) and white cypress pine logs (Callitris glaucophylla) recovered from the native forest in Queensland, as well as Queensland plantation hoop pine (Araucaria cunninghamii) logs were used to manufacture LVL products following six different lay-up strategies including blended species LVL. The different lay-up strategies were to determine the opportunities for improving the mechanical performance of plantation softwood LVL by including native forest veneers. The manufactured products were evaluated for their bending performance, tension, bearing strength perpendicular to the grain, and longitudinal-tangential shear strength. The all-spotted gum LVL showed superior performance in all testing compared to other construction strategies. Blending even a small amount of spotted gum veneer with plantation hoop pine veneer resulted in improved mechanical performance, especially in flatwise bending. Opportunities exist to develop more optimised construction strategies that target specific product performances while optimising the use of the variable veneer qualities generated from log processing.
The main objective of this study was to investigate the key mechanical properties of cross-banded laminated veneer lumbers (LVL-C) manufactured from blending veneers recovered from sub-optimal native forest spotted gum and plantation hoop pine logs. The recovered veneers were separated into three grades based on their dynamic modulus of elasticity (MOE). Additionally, the spotted gum veneers were visually graded to evaluate whether a relationship exists between the MOE-based and visual grades. In total, six 12-ply reference LVL and six mixed-species 12-ply LVL-C panels were manufactured and analyzed for (i) flatwise and edgewise bending performance; (ii) bearing and tension strength perpendicular to the grain; and (iii) longitudinal-tangential shear strength. Little correlation was found between MOE-based and visual grades for the spotted gum veneers. The LVL- C showed flatwise and edgewise MOE up to 24% and 13% lower, respectively, than the reference mixed-species LVL. The flatwise and edgewise modulus of rupture were up to 39% and 19% lower, respectively. On average, the tensile and bearing strengths of the LVL-C were considerably higher than the hoop pine LVL and mixed-species LVL, with the former being approximately three times higher. The manufactured LVL-C showed markedly higher bending properties and tensile strengths than commercial LVL-C products.
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