Correlating Off-Axis Tension Tests to Shear Modulus of Wood-Based Panels

Abstract

The weakness of existing relationships correlating off-axis modulus of elasticity E θ to shear modulus G 12 for wood composite panels is demonstrated through presentation of extensive experimental data. A new relationship is proposed that performs better than existing equations found in the literature. This relationship can be manipulated to calculate the shear modulus G 12 of orthotropic specimens such as wood-based panels solely from off-axis tension (or compression) tests. The proposed relationship reduces to classical theory for the isotropic case. In all cases tested, the newly proposed relationship is a better fit to the data than the traditional orthotropic elasticity equation.