Evaluation of Elastic Constants of Oil Palm Wood using Ultrasonic Measurement

200 million m³ oil palm trunks per year are still a “waste by-product”. For generating added-value, material modelling and product optimization and therefore knowledge of the elastic properties are required. Apart from Young´s modulus parallel to the vascular bundles, the elastic properties of oil palm wood are not known. The applicability of ultrasonic testing (time of flight of three longitudinal, six shear and three quasi-shear wave measurements) for the characterization of all 12 elastic constants of oil palm wood hav-ing various densities was investigated under the assumption of an orthotropic material behavior. For the evaluation, the simplified uncorrected and the full stiffness inversion method were used. The lack of correlation between the density and the ultrasonic velocity when using flat transducers questions the applicability of this method for oil palm wood.