Abstract:
In this study we performed anatomic, physical-mechanical and chemical measurements on a set of small test samples of 27 wood species from the tropical mountain forest in Ecuador. We determined color and vessel arrangement, wood density (bulk and dry density) and wood moisture content, vessel density and vessel diameter, extractive contents, Young’s modulus ED (parallel and transverse to the grain) and failure strain ?D|| (parallel to the grain). For dry density we found a wide range of 0,25 - 0,95 g/cm-3. Extractive contents were strikingly low (1,44 ± 0,79 Gew.%). The best correlation (R2 = 0,82) exists for ?D|| and dry density. Moreover, it is interesting that the geometric mean of ED values parallel and transverse to the grain strongly correlates with dry density (R2 = 0,74), and especially better than ED values in single directions. The results of this study provide indications for further investigations in this test area. In an outlook we give recommendations regarding the required sample size for future studies allowing statistical analyses of the important wood properties.
