Flexural properties of wood I-beams flanged with tropical hardwoods

The paper is aimed at evaluating the flexural properties of wood i-beams flanged with two tropical hardwoods: castanha-de-macaco (cariniana micrantha) and marupá (simarouba amara). the flanges were nondestructively tested and used to assemble 16 mdf-webbed wood i-beams. two adhesive types were used for bonding flange to web, namely, resorcinol-formaldehyde and castor-oil based polyurethane. results showed that flexural properties of i-beams were highly affected by the flange stiffness and transversal vibration method showed models with the highest coefficient of determination. castanha-de-macaco flanged i-beam presented flexural properties higher than marupá flanged i-beam. on the other hand, adhesive type affected only modulus of elasticity and resorcinol-formaldehyde yielded stiffer i-beam. all tested i-beams showed suitable flexural properties in comparison with data found in the literature. although this was a preliminary study, the potential of tropical hardwoods as i-beam flange materials had been demonstrated and the research effort should be continued.