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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Mater.
Sec. Mechanics of Materials
Volume 11 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fmats.2024.1425107
This article is part of the Research Topic Nondestructive Testing and Characterization of Solid Materials View all 5 articles

Variations in mechanical wood properties of half-sibling genetic families of black alder (Alnus glutinosa (L.) Gaertn.)

Provisionally accepted
Benas Šilinskas Benas Šilinskas 1,2*Iveta Varnagirytė-Kabašinskienė Iveta Varnagirytė-Kabašinskienė 1Lina Beniušienė Lina Beniušienė 1Marius Aleinikovas Marius Aleinikovas 1
  • 1 Lithuanian Research Centre for Agriculture and Forestry, Akademija, Lithuania
  • 2 Institute of Forest Biology and Silviculture, Faculty of Forest Sciences and Ecology, Vytautas Magnus University Academy of Agriculture, Akademija, Kaunas, Lithuania

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    The study investigated the wood mechanical properties of black alder (Alnus glutinosa (L.) Gaertn.), a widely distributed deciduous tree in Europe valued for its suitability in silviculture and wood industry applications. The aim was to compare these properties among selected half-sib families and assess the relationship between wood hardness and other characteristics. Experimental plantations of black alder progenies from Lithuanian populations were established in different forest regions in 1998. The study analyzed various parameters for different genetic families, including tree diameter, height, wood hardness, moisture content, wood density, and mechanical properties.The findings revealed significant variability in wood properties among half-sib families, highlighting a strong genetic influence. While the static modulus of elasticity showed no notable difference across families, other properties showed significant variations.Furthermore, the analysis identified weak correlations between wood hardness and other mechanical properties like density, modulus of elasticity, and bending strength. This suggests that wood hardness may not reliably indicate wood quality for industrial applications. Consequently, the study recommends considering alternative nondestructive properties, such as dynamic modulus of elasticity, in future genetic studies of black alder for more accurate assessments of wood quality.

    Keywords: bending strength, Modulus of elasticity, wood density, genetic influence, Vertical variation, Wood hardness

    Received: 29 Apr 2024; Accepted: 23 Jul 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Šilinskas, Varnagirytė-Kabašinskienė, Beniušienė and Aleinikovas. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Benas Šilinskas, Lithuanian Research Centre for Agriculture and Forestry, Akademija, Lithuania

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