Shape and cell wall slenderness effects on the stiffness of wood cell aggregates in the transverse plane

Abstract

The present study investigates a homogenization method in the framework of finite element method to determine the effective stiffness properties of wood cell aggregates in the transverse plane. For this purpose, square and regular hexagonal representative volume elements are chosen to mimic the wood cells. Thereafter, simulation experiments are conducted to understand how different cell shapes and cell wall slenderness, which is cell wall thickness to height ratio, affect the stiffness properties in the transverse plane. The comparison between analytical and computational homogenization results show that square cells have higher elastic moduli than the ones computed for hexagonal cells whereas shear modulus of both cell shapes have more or less the similar values. This can be explained due to the effective deformation mechanisms under different loading conditions. Thus, the present study provides an effective stiffness estimation tool and insight for wood cell aggregates.