Evaluation of suitability of selected hardwood in civil engineering

Abstract

Apart from gradually disappearing spruce wood, hardwood, particularly beech, oak, hornbeam, and maple, will be among the future local wood sources in the Central Europe. A multiple criteria analysis, PROMETHEE method, was used in order to select the most suitable hardwood for construction purposes. Apart from the forest land area criterion, seven other evaluation criteria were selected including physical and mechanical properties of individual hardwood species. Some of the properties in question were experimentally determined and verified. All alternatives were compared and their ranking was determined based on the use of PROMETHEE II method. The result is a single hardwood species whose use in civil engineering appears to be the most suitable in terms of the selected criteria. In addition, the influence of selected weights of individual criteria on the decision making process is discussed.

Keywords

• Multiple Criteria Decision Making (MCDM)
• hardwood species
• mechanical properties
• physical properties