Survey of timber structures – Validation studies of a service life prediction tool

Despite the favourable properties of wood, one negative aspect is that wood can be degraded by biotic and abiotic factors such as fungi, rain and UV light (Brischke et al., 2006). Therefore, several research projects, such as TimberLife (MacKenzie et al., 2007) and WoodExter (Thelandersson et al., 2011), have already been carried out to predict the service life (SL) of wooden components. The recently ended project CLICKdesign followed these lines by developing a prototype software of a service life prediction tool (SLPT) by improving and combining already existing models (van Niekerk et al., 2021). The CLICKdesign tool shall help wood users forecast the SL of the desired components. It consists of four modules: Fungal decay, Aesthetic, Termite mapper, and Structural integrity (CLICKdesign, 2022). This study focused on the fungal decay module of the SLPT and aimed to determine the accuracy and predictive power of the CLICKdesign SLPT.

Keywords: decay, durability, service life prediction tool

Authors

Joshua Rabke
University of Goettingen, Wood Biology and Wood Products, Germany

Christian Brischke
University of Goettingen, Wood Biology and Wood Products, Germany

Gry Alfredsen
Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research (NIBIO), Norway

Philip van Niekerk
University of Goettingen, Wood Biology and Wood Products, Germany

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