This thesis presents a state of the art on moisture induced stresses in glulam, complemented with own findings. These are covered in detail in the appended papers. The first objective was to find a suitable model to describe moisture induced stresses, in particular with respect to mechanosorption. A review of existing models led to the conclusion that the selection of correct material parameters is more critical to obtain reliable results than the formulation of the mechanosorption model. A series of laboratory tests was thus performed in order to determine the parameters required for the model and to experimentally measure moisture induced stresses in glulam subjected to one dimensional wetting/drying. Special attention was paid to using glulam from the same batch for all the experimental measurements in order to calibrate the numerical model reliably. The results of the experiments confirmed that moisture induced stresses are larger during wetting than during drying, and that the tensile stresses could clearly exceed the characteristic tensile strength perpendicular to grain.
