NDT-Based Characterization of Timber and Vulcanized Fiber for Civil Infrastructure Cynara FIEDLER BREMER 1)2) , Ronja SCHOLZ 3) , Sebastian MYSLICKI 3) , Peter STARKE 2) , Christian BOLLER 2) , Frank WALTHER 3) , Martin KRAUSE 4) 1) UFMG, Dept. de Tecnologia da Arquitetura e do Urbanismo, Belo Horizonte/MG, Sponsored by CNPq, Brazil 2) Chair of NDT and Quality Assurance, Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany 3) Chair of Materials Test Engineering (WPT), TU Dortmund University, Dortmund, Germany 4) Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung & -prüfung, Berlin, Germany Phone: +49 (231) 755-8028 ; frank.walther@tu-dortmund.de Abstract The paper addresses beech wood as well as vulcanized fiber and discusses the results obtained when using acoustic emission and thermography as non-destructive testing techniques along tensile and load increase fatigue tests to characterize the wooden material’s behavior under increasing fatigue loads to get enhanced information regarding the fatigue behavior of both materials. Reference is mainly made to the materials’ anisotropic and microstructural behavior and what implications this has with respect to the materials’ strength. The influence of moisture is discussed, as well as parameters that may deserve monitoring in the sense of structural health monitoring to be applied in timber structures in general. Keywords: Fatigue, load increase test, thermography, non-destructive testing, acoustic emission, wood, timber, vulcanized fiber 1. Introduction Timber and vulcanized fiber are materials in civil engineering used to a limited extent but with an increasing demand and structural challenges with respect to its environmental friendliness, sustainability and ability to be recycled. Wood is also a structural material that has been widely used in existing civil infrastructure of considerable age and can therefore be found in a variety of listed buildings of significant age. Wood is an anisotropic material and as such not easy to characterize. Vulcanized fiber is a modified natural product, which is manufactured from cellulose in the form of special paper layers produced by parchmentizing which also shows a strong anisotropic dependence of the mechanical properties. The density (approx. 1.2-1.4 g/cm 3 ) is comparable to wood and the mechanical properties are at the level of some engineering plastics (thermoplastics). In fact, wood and vulcanized fiber can be described as orthotropic, by having three main axes which remain the same by rotation of 180°. For reasons of anisotropy and comparatively less knowledge of damage mechanisms in timber and vulcanized fiber, materials safety factors have been relatively high, or in other words, applied loads low such that structural integrity has not been compromised. The use of non-destructive testing (NDT) is common in the field of wood and timber. Vulcanized fiber on the other hand is a less well-characterized material in research and using NDT is a new aspect. The ‘wood-like’ constitution of vulcanized fiber led to the benchmark of the materials presented in this paper. Enhanced characterization using NDT does allow the potential of timber, vulcanized fiber material and even other material and the structures made of it to be determined, would this be for new as well as for old infrastructure. The characterization of wood properties is critical for International Symposium Non-Destructive Testing in Civil Engineering (NDT-CE) September 15 - 17, 2015, Berlin, Germany More Info at Open Access Database www.ndt.net/?id=18419