Properties of cell wall constituents in relation to longitudinal elasticity of wood

 To predict the origin of longitudinal elasticity of the solid wood in relation to the composite structure of the wood cell wall, an analytical procedure was developed on the basis of the idea of “the reinforced-matrix hypothesis” originally introduced by Barber and Meylan (1964). A multi-layered circular cylinder, having the CML, the S1, and the S2 layers, was used as a model of the ligno-cellulosic (wood) fiber, and the elastic properties of an isolated wood fiber were formulated mathematically. In the formulation, not only the structural factors, such as the microfibril angle and the thickness of each layer, but also the environmental condition, e.g. the moisture content, were taken into consideration. The effects of the moisture content and the microfibril angle upon the longitudinal Young's modulus and the Poisson's ratio of the wood fiber were simulated by using the newly derived formulae. It is anticipated to give a start to estimate the fine structure and the internal properties of the cell wall constituents in relation to the macroscopic behaviors of the wood through simulating the mechanical behaviors of the wood fiber. Received 17 August 1999