The Resistance of Some Commercially Thermally Modified American Hardwoods to Termites and Fungi

IRG/WP 22-40944

B Cortes, B Bond, A Taylor, J Lloyd

Thermally Modified Wood (TMW) is now being produced in the United States but there are few data on the durability of these materials. In this study, commercially-produced thermally modified yellow poplar (Liriodendron tulipifera), red maple (Acer rubrum), and white ash (Fraxinus americana) were evaluated for fungal and termite resistance. The resistance of the three TMW species against Gloeophyllum trabeum (a brown-rot), Trametes versicolor (a white-rot) and Reticulitermes flavipes (native US subterranean termites) were evaluated using standard laboratory tests. In the decay test, an extra set of samples was prewetted prior to installation into the test to determine if slow wetting of the thermally modified samples contributes to apparent decay resistance. The decay test was only partly successful, but the results suggest that TMW is relatively durable, and that prewetting of the samples can reduce the apparent durability in short-term tests. In the termite resistance test, the three TMW species had no resistance against subterranean termites, with sample mass loss of 50% on average, compared to a 30% for the unmodified wood controls.


Keywords: TMW, decay resistance, termite resistance, wood, thermally modified wood

Conference: 22-05-29/06-02 Bled, Slovenia


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