LAUSR

Because of its hardness, wear-resistance, strength, and bending capabilities, beech wood is a widely-used hardwood in Europe. It is mainly used for furniture, floors, construction, veneer boards, and laminated wood. For such uses, the mechanical properties are very important, especially in cases of impact loads. The aim of this work is to analyse the mechanical properties of beech wood samples exposed to compressive force in the longitudinal direction based on different loading rates (in the range from 10 mm/min to 500 mm/min). Stress–strain diagrams were made with the experimental data, and mathematical functions were fit to them. Using the fit functions, the following properties of beech wood samples were determined: the stress and strain at the elastic limit; the maximum stress and associated strain; the modulus of elasticity; the tangent modulus; the specific energy of elastic strain; and the specific energy of plastic strain. The results showed that by increasing the loading rates, the elastic properties of beech wood increase, while the analysed plastic properties do not show a clear tendency of changes with increase of the loading rates.