Research Concerning the Shearing Strength of Black Locust Wood

Abstract

The paper presents the experimental resultsobtained for the shearing strength of black locustwood (Robinia pseudacacia L.) harvested from twogeographical areas (North and South) of Romania.Wood is subjected to shearing stress when usedwithin different fields, and especially inconstructions. Tangential stresses are produced inthe shearing sections and they are influenced by thestructure of wood through the position of theshearing plane and of the force direction towards thegrain. Accordingly, several shearing types arepossible. The shearing strengths for the three mainshearing types, both on radial and tangentialdirection were determined within the present study.The evaluation of data was achieved by using theANOVA analysis, in order to test the level ofsignificance depending on the shearing planeorientation and the harvesting area. The obtainedresults were compared to the values mentionedwithin reference literature for this wood species andtwo other hardwood species with similar density. It isworth to be mentioned that the shearing strengths ofblack locust wood from Romania (both from Northand South) are generally higher than those indicatedby reference literature for oak and beech. Thisrecommends black locust wood as constructionwood and for other applications where wood issubjected to shearing stress.