3D hierarchical computational model of wood as a cellular material with fibril reinforced, heterogeneous multiple layers

A 3D hierarchical computational model of deformation and stiffness of wood, which takes into account the structures of wood at several scale levels (cellularity. multilayered nature of cell walls, composite-like structures of the wall layers) is developed. At the mesoscale, the softwood cell is presented as a 3D hexagon-shape-tube with multilayered walls. The layers in the softwood cell are considered as considered as composite reinforced by microfibrils (celluloses). The elastic properties of the layers are determined with Halpin-Tsai equations, and introduced into mesoscale finite element cellular model. With the use of the developed hierarchical model, the influence of the microstructure, including microfibril angles (MFAs, which characterizes the orientation of the cellulose fibrils with respect to the cell axis), the thickness of the cell wall, the shape of the cell cross-section and the cell dimension (wood density), on the elastic properties of softwood was studied. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.