Apitong (Dipterocarpus spp.), an increasingly rare tropical hardwood from the rainforest in Southeast Asia, has long been used as decking materials for open-bed trailers and trucks across North America. As the natural population of Apitong trees steadily declines, there is an urgent need to find sustainable, domestically sourced alternatives for trailer decking. A recent project evaluated the performance of U.S. domestic hardwoods treated with environmentally friendly wood preservatives, in a tropical environment. This paper aims to evaluate the use of non-destructive testing (NDT) methods to assess the condition of hardwood trailer deck materials installed in the tropical regions. Two NDT techniques were applied in the field evaluation of full-size hardwood trailer deck boards: a time-of-flight (TOF) acoustic measurement and the Pilodyn penetration test. The results were compared with visual assessment based on the American Wood Protection Association (AWPA) standard. The results indicate that decay was the main factor contributing to the deterioration of the trailer deck boards at the tropical test site. Visual assessments showed that both treated oak and treated maple boards demonstrated better durability than untreated Apitong. The acoustic and Pilodyn assessments supported the visual findings and highlighted severe deteriorations of the deck boards that were not captured by visual inspection. The results of this study will help develop standardised non-destructive testing protocols for future field monitoring of hardwood trailer decking conditions, supporting the adoption of sustainable domestic hardwood species in the transportation industry.

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