Abstract
Several methodologies related to the biomechanical risk assessment and the uprooting and breaking potential of palms are reviewed and evaluated in this study. Also a simple mathematical model was designed, to simulate the results of critical wind speed predictions for a tall coconut palm by using classic beam theory and Brazier buckling. First, the review presents arguments that assess the applicability of some influential claims and tree and palm risk assessment methods that have been amply marketed in the last 20 years. Then, the analysis goes beyond the classical procedures and theories that have influenced the arboricultural industry and related press so far. And afterwards, rationale behind several postulated ideas are presented, that are hoped to be fruitful in the path towards a new biomechanical theory for the biomechanical risk assessment of palms. The postulated model envisages the palm stem as a viscoelastic and hollow cylinder that is not only prone to buckling, ovalization and kinking, but also fatigue, shear, splitting and crack propagation. This envisaging was also the main reason why simple Brazier buckling formulation was experimentally applied to simulate the breaking risk of a cocostem. This study also enables a better understanding of the wide range of factors that may influence the mechanical behaviour of trees and palms under (wind) loading.
Highlights
Several methodologies related to the biomechanical risk assessment and the uprooting and breaking potential of palms are reviewed and evaluated in this study
In the field of palm risk assessment and arboriculture in general, it would be not unreasonable to translate this observation into e.g. wrongly-assessed trees and palms or inappropriate evidence adduced in courts of law
No mechanically-damaged tissue in the harvested cocostems was reported in Refs.[32, 34], which suggests that those coconut palms had not suffered any failure of their stem fibres, not even when wind speeds up to 259.28 km/h hit the island they were growing on
Summary
Several methodologies related to the biomechanical risk assessment and the uprooting and breaking potential of palms are reviewed and evaluated in this study. The postulated model envisages the palm stem as a viscoelastic and hollow cylinder that is prone to buckling, ovalization and kinking, and fatigue, shear, splitting and crack propagation This envisaging was the main reason why simple Brazier buckling formulation was experimentally applied to simulate the breaking risk of a cocostem. Trees are statically loaded with a rope to assess if they could uproot or break, comparing the pulling load with a hypothetical wind load and extrapolating m easurements[3,5] Never has their practical applicability for palms been academically questioned in depth. On the webpage of that company it is claimed that They have developed a method for the risk assessment of palms with a “reliability of almost a 100%”, involving drilling and oscillation tests. The cavity had only affected 25% of the radius when the stem b roke[13]
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