Effects of Accelerated Aging Treatments and Outdoor Exposure on the Mechanical Properties of Wood-Based Panels

摘要

Introduction The durability of wood-based panels is one of their most important properties when they are used in residential construction. This is true not only for structural panels like plywood and oriented strandboard (OSB), but also for moisture-resistant domestically produced particleboard (PB) and medium-density fiberboard (MDF), which are frequently used as structural elements. The durability or moisture resistance of such panels is usually" determined by standardized aging test methods that include various cycles of cold or hot water immersion, boiling, steaming, freezing, and drying, in the past few decades, numerous studies on panel durability have been performed. Harm et al.discussed mat-formed panels and Northcott and Coibeck evaluated plywood durability, in Japan, Kajita et al. conducted five standardized accelerated aging tests on panels of different resin types. Outdoor exposure is considered to be an accelerated aging test and has been evaluated in various countries. The common objectives of outdoor tests have been to predict the deterioration or weakening of panels in actual use, and to establish the relationship with the standardized accelerated aging test methods. In Japan, several studies have been conducted with veneer-based materials. Sekino and Suzuki reported the 10-year test results for wood-based panels including plywood, OSB, PB, MDF, hardboard, and cement-bonded PB. However, very few have examined the relationship to aging test methods.