Micro-tensile behavior of Scots pine sapwood after heat treatments in superheated steam or pressurized hot water

Abstract Heat treatments reduce the strength and ductility of wood, but the extent depends on the direction of load and the treatment conditions applied. The tensile behavior of wood is very sensitive to heat treatments, but there is a lack of understanding how this is related to different heat treatment conditions. In this study, we treated homogeneous micro-veneers under different time-, temperature-, and moisture-environments and compared the effect on the tensile behavior of the treated veneers based on their chemical composition changes. The results confirmed the adverse effect of the preferential hemicellulose removal on the strength and toughness of wood. However, chemical composition changes could not fully explain the tensile behavior of dry heat-treated wood, which showed an additional loss in maximum load and work in traction at the same residual hemicellulose content compared to wet heat-treated wood. The scission of cellulose chains as well as the enhanced cross-linking of the cell wall matrix under dry heat conditions and elevated temperatures was discussed as additional factors. The enhanced cross-linking of the cell wall matrix helped in preserving the tensile properties when testing the veneers in water-saturated state, but may have also promoted the formation of cracks that propagated across the cell wall during tensile loading. Graphic abstract