Wood
Testing

The MTI Engineered Wood Products Testing Application Package

The forest products industry is faced with unique challenges in producing consistently high quality building materials. Finished sheet products such as OSB, MDF and particle board, and engineered lumber components like floor and roof trusses are fabricated from a material that is inherently variable in physical strength and stiffness properties. Production of finished construction materials which exhibit consistently reliable baseline performance capabilities is a challenge in both research of fabrication methods, and in quality control monitoring during ongoing production operations. End users of these fabricated materials also are required to maintain rigid quality control standards. MTI has Engineered Wood testing systems installed at sites which cover the entire spectrum.

The unique testing requirements for wood products often require that electronic weighing scales and digital micrometers be incorporated into systems to make the testing process faster, easier and more reliable. Scales and digital micrometers are directly linked to the computer system so that these measurement variables are transferred directly into the testing programs where applicable. This eliminates one of the major sources of human error associated with manual input of such information.

Production facilities are primarily involved in quality control regulation. All of the Georgia-Pacific OSB mill sites in the United States incorporate MTI testing systems in this critical phase of production. The full range of APA required tests are supported and consistency of results is verified by independent APA inspectors on a regular basis. Ainsworth OSB mills in Minnesota are also now equipped with MTI testing hardware and software.

MTI-20K and MTI-30K universal testing systems are installed at the G-P LVL production facilities in Roxboro North Carolina and Ocala Florida, and engineers are performing tests utilizing the newly developed engineered lumber component of the Engineered Wood library.

J M Huber Corp. is operating This MTI-100K (100,000 pounds / 450 kN force) I-Joist Beam Testing System to accomplish testing of structural engineered wood I-beams up to 40-feet in length. The system is also offered in a 50,000 pounds (225 kN) Capacity version. The MTI I-Joist Test System accomplishes all ASTM D-198 and D-5055 testing requirements.

Universities are heavily involved in research in the production of wood building products. Systems installed at the forest product laboratories of Iowa State University, the University of Tennessee and Northwestern State University of Louisiana are heavily utilized by both faculty and students in their research and development activities. The entire spectrum of wood products testing - from Clear Timber to Engineered Wood Product testing - is a requirement at such institutions.

Steelcase, located in Ashville North Carolina, is one of the largest consumers of high density particle board in the construction of quality furniture. Incoming materials are sampled and tested on a daily basis to verify that purchased materials meet properties and performance specifications before being used in production. Steelcase has utilized the Particle Board component of WOOD-Test for years for verification testing and quality assurance.

WOOD-Test  Component Modules

All system installation include the full WOOD-Test library. The current set of testing applications is divided into four sub-libraries, each of which includes the listed testing applications programs. The required measured and calculated physical properties and test results as defined by each method are calculated and reported.


Small Clear Specimens of Timber  (ASTM D-143)
  • Static Bending
  • Compression Parallel & Perpendicular to the Grain
  • Tension Parallel & Perpendicular to the Grain
  • Hardness (modified ball)
  • Shear Parallel to Grain
  • Cleavage
  • Nail Withdrawal
Properties of Wood-Base Fiber and Particle Panel Materials  (ASTM D-1037)
  • Static Bending
  • Tensile Strength Parallel & Perpendicular to the Surface
  • Compression Strength Parallel & Perpendicular to the Surface
  • lateral Nail Resistance
  • Nail Withdrawal
  • Nail-Head Pull-Through
  • Direct Screw Withdrawal
  • Hardness (Janka)
  • Shear Strength in the Plane of the Board (Rail Shear)
  • Glue-Line Shear
  • Water Absorption and Thickness Swelling
  • Moisture Content and Specific Gravity
  • Density Profile
Oriented Strand Board (OSB) Quality Assurance  (ASTM D-1037 with APA modifications)
  • Static Bending, Parallel orientation
  • Static Bending, Perpendicular orientation
  • Static Bending after Water Soak
  • Internal Bond
  • Rail Shear, Parallel orientation
  • Rail Shear, Perpendicular orientation
  • Density Profile
  • Moisture Absorption
  • Thickness Swell
Engineered Lumber - LVL  (ASTM D-3043)

This testing program library follows the general guidelines of ASTM D-3043.  Expansion of the applications library is currently underway and specific customer requirements not listed here will be included as part of an installed system.

  • Static Bending, Flat Orientation of Header Stock
  • Static Bending, Edge Orientation of Header Stock
  • Long Span Tension
  • Durability, Dry and Wet
  • Nail Withdrawal
  • Dowel Bearing
  • Block Shear
  • Parallel Compression
  • Perpendicular Compression, Flat and Parallel Orientations