Wood Subjected to Hygro-Thermal and/or Mechanical Loads
The FV method was originally developed for fluid flow, heat and mass transfer calculations (Patankar, 1980), and later generalized for stress analysis in isotropic linear and non-linear bodies (Demirdžic & Muzaferija, 1994; Demirdžic et al., 1997; Demirdžic & Martinovic, 1993). For the purpose of the stress analysis in the wood, the method is modified to take into account the anisotropic nature of the wood and influence of the moisture content and the temperature on the deformation and stresses (Horman, 1999). Also, performance of the wood is found to be very sensitive to the moisture content and the temperature. Thus, it is of a great importance to be able to predict behavior of such materials under different hygrothermo-mechanical loads. In order to demonstrate the methods capabilities, a transient analysis of fields of temperature, moisture, and stresses and displacement in the wood subjected to hygro-thermal or mechanical loads is performed.