Experimental campaign on the mechanical properties of Canadian small clear spruce-pine-fir wood: Experimental procedures, data curation, and data description

Data Brief. 2023 Mar 16:48:109064. doi: 10.1016/j.dib.2023.109064. eCollection 2023 Jun.

Abstract

This article contains an experimental dataset related to the mechanical properties of Canadian small clear spruce-pine-fir wood. Motivated by the necessity of shading light on the orthotropic mechanical behavior of clear specimens of two of the most common wooden grades used for the manufacturing of cross-laminated timber panels in North America, a comprehensive experimental campaign on small clear spruce-pine-fir wood specimens, based on ASTM D143-22, has been conducted in the Department of Wood Science of the University of British Columbia. A total of 690 specimens from both visually-graded number 2 and machine-stress rated 2100fb 1.8E spruce-pine-fir wood were tested in compression, tension, and shear, following the directions parallel- and perpendicular-to-the-grain. For each test, the force and the deformation were recorded on-line through an MTS software before being stored in a hard drive disk unit as text files at the end of the test. Text files were then post-processed using a MATLAB routine to generate stress-strain data points, ultimate strength, and modulus of elasticity. Additionally, probability distributions of ultimate strength and modulus of elasticity of specimens were plotted. A Kolmogorov-Smirnov goodness-of-fit test was used to fit these data using either Burr, Gumbel, or Weibull distribution. In overall, the dataset presented in this work can be used in the finite-elements modelling of the structural behavior of timber connections or the local mechanical behavior of timber elements. This dataset can also be used to get a grasp and asses the variability in the mechanical properties of Canadian small clear spruce-pine-fir wood.

Keywords: Cross-laminated timber; Machine-stress rated lumber; Shear; Tension; Timber; Visually graded lumber; Wood; compression.