Resonance of scantlings indicates the stiffness even of small specimens of Eucalyptus from plantations

Abstract

The aim of this study was to establish the relationship between the stiffness of scantlings, approaching structural size materials, and small specimens of 6-year-old Eucalyptus urophylla × grandis wood using a resonance technique. The correlation between the elastic modulus (E) of the scantlings in longitudinal vibration and small specimens in flexural vibration was r = 75 when comparing the scantling values with the averaged values of the specimens per scantling. However, when the E of each single specimen was compared with its respective scantling, the coefficient of correlation decreased to r = 0.64 in the longitudinal tests and r = 0.61 in the flexural tests. A roughly linear correlation (r = 0.59) between specific modulus and loss tangent was obtained for the small specimens of Eucalyptus. In short, the resonance technique rapidly provided a large, accurate data set of mechanical wood properties as required for high-throughput phenotyping in recent genetic studies.