International Nondestructive Testing and Evaluation of Wood Symposium
Research Status
Complete
Summary
Cross Laminated Timber (CLT) is part of a new generation of engineered wood products that are now widespread across Europe, Australia, and Canada. As this trend is now growing in the United States, manufacturers are looking to expand the use of CLT into the North American market, which includes states located in the southeastern U.S. As this region is known to have an increased risk of termite attack, standards should be developed to evaluate termite damage on CLT products prior to extensive use of the product in this region. However, existing standard test methods cannot be applied directly to CLT specimens as current standard test sample sizes are too small to adequately represent CLT constructed materials. Therefore, larger sample sizes were examined to determine resistance of CLT products against termite attack. Large sample size made it difficult to evaluate termite damage using weight loss as a variable as termite damaged specimens showed relatively low weight loss values. The objective of this work was to examine the use of the image analysis software, ImageJ, in determining the extent of termite damage on CLT blocks. Results showed that evaluation of void volume percent could be used in conjunction with weight loss and visual rating to obtain a more accurate measurement of overall termite damage in CLT.