A computational approach to design moisture-resistant wood polymer composites
- Hess, Kristen M.
- Heveran, Chelsea M. [ Montana State University: Mechanical & Industrial Engineering ]
- Srubar III, Wil V.
This work computationally predicts the onset of moisture-induced damage for different wood polymer composite (WPC) formulations using an experimentally validated micromechanical model. For model validation, the flexural mechanical properties of a commercially available WPC were experimentally obtained after exposure to either moisture or combined moisture and freezing conditions. As expected, exposure caused a loss in mechanical properties, which was primarily attributed moisture-induced damage and not further exacerbated by freezing. Once validated, the model was used to predict that the WPC would incur damage when placed in a commonplace 40–45 % relative humidity environment. This work demonstrates that computational simulations can be used to design moisture-resistant WPC formulations given specific environmental conditions (i.e., relative humidity, temperature) of the intended target application.