IRG Documents Database and Compendium


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Borate Protection and Termites: Variation in Protection Thresholds Explained
2006 - IRG/WP 06-20324
Laboratory and field data reported in the literature are confusing with regard to ‘adequate’ protection thresholds for borate timber preservatives against subterranean termites. The confusion is compounded by differences in termite species, timber species and test methodology. Laboratory data indicate a borate retention of 0.5% mass/mass (m/m) boric acid equivalent (BAE) would cause > 90% t...
B C Peters, C J Fitzgerald


The natural durability of wood in different use classes - PART II
2006 - IRG/WP 06-10598
The natural durability of important European wood species has been tested on 3970 speci¬mens in field trials. The wood was exposed at five test sites in Germany with different climates, at each site in European use class 4 and 3 (with and without soil contact). Within European use class 3 three different expositions were tested: vertical with sheltered end grain, vertical unsheltered and horizont...
A O Rapp, U Augusta, K Brandt


Predicting the decay resistance of timber above-ground: 1. Climate effects
2006 - IRG/WP 06-20330
Despite the benefits of using timber as a building product, it is disadvantaged by current Australian Standard durability classifications which lack the sensitivity desired by engineers and architects. To address the need for more sensitive timber service-life information in Australia, an above-ground durability research program was established in 1987. One focus of research is the relationship be...
L P Francis, J Norton


High-energy multiple impact (HEMI)-test – Part 2: A mechanical test for the detection of fungal decay
2006 - IRG/WP 06-20339
The suitability of the high-energy multiple impact (HEMI)-test for detection of early fungal decay was examined. The HEMI – test characterizes the treatment quality of thermally modified wood by stressing the treated material by thousands of impacts of pounding steel balls. This method differentiates between heat treatment intensities, which are expressed by structural changes of the wood. Simil...
C R Welzbacher, C Brischke, A O Rapp


L-joint based testing for service life prediction of exterior plywood in out of ground contact conditions
2006 - IRG/WP 06-20342
Good biological performance of several plywood types in exterior conditions is most probably related to altered wood moisture behaviour compared to solid wood. Therefore a test set up was developed, using EN 330 L-joint testing methodology, to facilitate differentiation of plywood for exterior applications. The proposed test set up is an adaptation of an accelerated L-joint method introduced by V...
J De Smet, I De Windt, J Van Acker


Performance of boron-treated radiata pine in above ground field tests in New Zealand
2006 - IRG/WP 06-30406
Boron treatment was approved for exterior, above ground use in New Zealand in 1958, provide treated commodities were painted with a three-coat paint system. Above ground tests of rail units and L-joints were established at the NZ Forest Research Institute (now Scion) between 1967 and 1980 to monitor performance of boron treatment in relation to that of untreated and CCA-treated timber. Results sh...
M Hedley, D Page


Measuring Soil Respiration as a New Approach to Describe the Interaction Between Wood (Treated and Untreated) and Microbiologically Active Soil
2006 - IRG/WP 06-20344
Soil respirometry was employed to examine the relationship between both the performance of copper organic preservatives in contact with and the amount of carbon dioxide evolved from soil and the effect of wood treated with preservatives on carbon turnover in soil. Wood was treated with a range of copper organic preservatives intended for use in ground contact as well as an organic preservative in...
I Stephan, W Mierke


High-energy multiple impact (HEMI)-test – Part 1: A new tool for quality control of thermally modified timber
2006 - IRG/WP 06-20346
Thermal modification processes improve durability and dimensional stability of wood, but the strength properties, especially the dynamic ones, are compromised and need to be considered with respect to industrial quality control. Results from standard dynamic strength testing, such as impact bending tests, suffer from high variability, and therefore require a high number of replicates. To overcome ...
C Brischke, A O Rapp, C R Welzbacher


Performance of borate-treated lumber after 8 years in an above-ground termite field test in Hawaii
2006 - IRG/WP 06-30390
We report eight years of field study results from a protected above-ground field test in Hawaii simulating the sill plate (dodai) used in conventional Japanese housing construction. Field tests were established in both Hawaii and Japan to examine the efficacy of disodium octaborate tetrahydrate (DOT, 2% and 3% BAE shell and through) wood treatments. In Hawaii, chromated copper arsenate (CCA, 4 kg...
J K Grace, A Byrne, P I Morris, K Tsunoda


Water analysis in chemicals, wood or chemically treated wood using a new analytical method for selective water detection
2006 - IRG/WP 03-30391
Water or moisture content analysis can be a challenging task in many applications. However, knowing accurately the type of water which can be found in a given sample or product can provide important information about a chemical compound used for wood treatment and especially about the treated wood sample. Moisture content in wood plays an important role in fungal growth and it needs to be extensi...
R Craciun, D Taylor


Performance of borate-treated lumber in a protected, above-ground field test in Japan
2006 - IRG/WP 06-30395
This document is supplemental to the previous IRG document (Tsunoda et al. 2004). An experiment to simulate the sill plate (dodai) of the Japanese houses was conducted at the termite field test site of the Research Institute for Sustainable Humanosphere of Kyoto University in Kagoshima Pref., Japan where two economically important subterranean termite species [Coptotermes formosanus Shiraki and R...
K Tsunoda, A Byrne, P I Morris, J K Grace


Exposure of CCA and ACZA treated parallel strand lumber to marine borer attack in northeastern and southeastern waters of the United States of America
2006 - IRG/WP 06-30400
Southern pine and Douglas fir Parallel Strand Lumber (PSL) panels were treated with chromated copper arsenate (CCA) or ammoniacal copper zinc arsenate (ACZA), respectively and exposed in a marine environment in Massachusetts (northeastern USA coast) for 7 years. Similarly treated panels were also exposed to a site on the Atlantic coast Florida (southeastern USA) for the same period. In the northe...
B Goodell, P Merrick, J Jellison, Y Qian


Above and Below-Ground Depletion of Copper, Chromium and Arsenic from Pinus radiata and Fagus sylvatica at Thirteen Test Sites in New Zealand and Australia
2006 - IRG/WP 06-30402
The objective was to determine the significance of site and wood species on preservative depletion for a copper chrome arsenate preservative (CCA) from 20 x 20 x 500 mm field test stakes after 5.5 and 4.5 years for pine and beech respectively. At least 5 sacrificial stakes were used to produce site means. Site and wood species had a major effect on copper, chromium and arsenic loss from CCA treate...
R Wakeling


The Development of a novel method to preserve reeds using an environmentally friendly timber preservative and a unique engineering design.
2006 - IRG/WP 06-40335
Reeds are used in the construction of bush lodges in Northern Kwa- Zulu Natal, South Africa. Fungal, insect and ultra-violet damage to these reeds is posing a severe problem. Within a space of two years, the reeds are attacked and have to be subsequently replaced; a time consuming and costly exercise. A novel method has been used to successfully preserve these reeds with an environmentally friendl...
K Govender, K G Moodley


Surface and system treatments of wood for outdoor use
2006 - IRG/WP 06-30412
The project “Surface and system treatment of wood for outdoor use” was initiated the summer 2001. The project evaluates environmentally friendly preservatives and water borne coating systems, to find the best protection for timber indented for outdoor use. The wood species selected as test material were pine and spruce. The different treatments were exposed in several outdoor accelerated tests...
B Jacobsen, F G Evans


Comparative study between dipping and boucherie method of bamboo preservation
2006 - IRG/WP 06-40324
A comparative study has been carried out between dipping and boucherie method for three major bamboo species namely borak (Bambusa balcooa Roxb.), talla (Bambusa tulda Roxb.) and jawa (Bambusa salarkhanii Alam) with CCB (Chromated-copper-boron). Preservative treatment has been carried out with five different concentrations of preservative (2%, 3%, 4%, 5% and 6%) and four different durations of dip...
A S M A Huda, S M Mithue, M N Islam, M O Hannan


Laboratory Leaching Tests to Study the Effects of Post-Treatment Storage Periods on CCA Leachability and Fixation in Treated Permeable and Refractory Malaysian Hardwoods
2006 - IRG/WP 06-50240
The biological resistance and environmental safety of CCA-treated wood relies on the extent of post-treatment storage fixation of CCA in wood prior to being utilized. A study on the comparative leachability (fixation) of CCA-treated refractory and permeable heartwoods of 3 Malaysian hardwoods subjected to different post-treatment storage (fixation) periods of up to 4 weeks, at 2 laboratory leachin...
A H H Wong, H C Lai, N P T Lim


Marine exposure assessment in southern Portugal of the natural resistance of a number of lesser known species of tropical hardwoods to teredinid and limnoriid borers
2007 - IRG/WP 07-10614
Naturally durable species of timber are used as an alternative to preservative treated timber for marine structures, but many species have not been evaluated for their potential for use in this environment. EN 275 specifies a 5-year test period - too long a period for screening tests to be economically viable. In this study, candidate timber species were selected for testing in the sea on the basi...
J R Williams, S M Cragg, L M S Borges, J D Icely, G S Sawyer


A roadmap for performance-based specification of wooden components based on service life prediction
2007 - IRG/WP 07-20351
The need for an unified and harmonised system for performance classification and specification of wood and wood-based products in Europe emanates from requirements of users and the European Construction Products Directive, CPD. A road to a feasible specification system is outlined. Exposure-related performance prediction was worked out as a key task on the way to product specification. Therefore s...
C Brischke, A O Rapp


Decay Hazard Classifications in China for Exterior Above-Ground Wood
2007 - IRG/WP 07-20357
A decay hazard map for exterior above-ground wood structures is presented based on Scheffer’s Climate Index, with the major purpose of promoting awareness for proper protection of wood structures in different locations in China. A very large area in the South, including southern Yunnan, most of Sichuan Province and Chongqing, and part of Hunan, Hubei, Anhui, Jiangxi, and Zhejiang, as well as all...
J Wang, X Wu, M Jiang, P I Morris


A method and apparatus for rapid assessment of termite barriers.
2007 - IRG/WP 07-20366
This paper describes an apparatus for rapid assessment of barriers to subterranean termite foraging. The method and apparatus arose from the development of a novel physical termite barrier. The barrier had to be flexible, resilient, able to be applied as a liquid and be neither toxic nor repellent. This posed a special problem as existing laboratory assessment techniques did not offer a sufficient...
D McG Ewart


Predicting the decay resistance of timber above-ground: 2. When can reliable field data be obtained?
2007 - IRG/WP 07-20368
Application of modern performance-based engineering and design requires building products that are thoroughly characterised in terms of their ability to perform as expected over time. The engineering community is attempting to use this information to provide predicted service-lives for various building elements. Increasingly, this service-life prediction must be based on objective measurement coup...
L P Francis, A J Swain, J J Morrell


Photo-degradation of modified and non-modified wood, coated with water borne acrylic coatings during artificial light exposure
2007 - IRG/WP 07-30416
A series of experiments were carried out to investigate photo-degradation of thermally modified (at 210oC and – 0.9 bars for two hours) and non-modified spruce wood (Picea abies L (Karst)), coated with transparent and semitransparent (with 3% pigment content) acrylic coatings during artificial UV light irradiation for 200 hours. Photo-degradation was evaluated in terms of colour changes througho...
M Deka, M Tomažic, M Petric


Wood furfurylation process development. Part 1: Oscillating Pressure Method
2007 - IRG/WP 07-40376
Furfurylated wood (wood modified by furfuryl alcohol) has over the last years gained marked shares from both tropical wood and conventional preservative treated wood and this has, in turn, generated several research projects concerning process development. The impregnation of spruce is well known from literature to be a difficult task. Furthermore, the sapwood of Scandinavian-grown Scots pine is a...
E Larnøy, M Westin, B Källander, S Lande


Protection of wood for above ground application through modification with a fatty acid modified N-methylol/paraffin formulation
2007 - IRG/WP 07-40378
Hydrophobic chemical modification can be regarded as an alternative approach to conventional wood preservation using biocides in order to protect wood in hazard class 3 according the European Standard EN 335-1. A formulation containing fatty acid modified N-methylol/paraffin and an aluminium salt catalyst was used to change the material properties of wood in order to protect wood from fungal dec...
Nguyen Hong Minh, H Militz, C Mai


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