Performance evaluation of wood-based panels under a mild accelerated aging treatment

Abstract

Accelerated aging treatments are often much more severe than necessary for final panel products that are being installed. It is thought that tests under these conditions are unable to exhibit properly the degradation mechanism in approach for evaluating durability performance of wood panel products. This study aimed to determine the effects of a mild accelerated aging treatment and to characterize the degradation behavior of wood-based panels under this condition. We used four groups of panels: plywood, oriented strand board, particleboard, and medium density fiberboard. The panels were subjected to a wet–dry cycle treatment for 80 cycles. We used a vibrational non-destructive test to evaluate the strength properties and trace degradation behaviors of the panels during the cycle treatments. The mild aging condition that we chose generated fairly small weight and thickness changes, which indicated that there was mild intensity in the aging process. Elastic constant (Ed) values decreased, whereas loss tangent (tan δ) values increased when the number of cycles increased. The wet–dry cycle treatments were clearly responsible for the reduced strength properties and the degradation behavior of each panel product. However, our results suggest that the proposed mild aging conditions used in this study, though not certified for use, may be sufficient to degrade wood-based panels in ways that lead to predictable durability performance.