Advances in Wood Materials

Introduction

Wood has served as one of humanity’s most fundamental materials for millennia, valued for its availability, renewability, and favorable mechanical characteristics. Traditionally employed in the construction and furniture sector, wood’s performance derives from its complex hierarchical structure. Wood is a natural material with heterogeneous behavior. Nowadays, for general design purposes, timber is characterized by a global modulus value as the standard state. Over the past century, research has progressed from empirical approaches to a detailed scientific understanding of wood’s anatomy, chemistry, and mechanical behavior. Being an anisotropic material, the theoretical models applied to simulate wood’s different behavior in tension and compression are challenging, and have been extensively investigated through research. Today, this evolution highlights the necessity for ongoing interdisciplinary research to enhance wood’s properties and performance while meeting environmental challenges.

Main Objectives

The objective of this Special Issue is to provide a comprehensive forum for sharing recent advancements in the characterization, enhancement, and utilization of wood materials in engineering products.

This Special Issue particularly encourages contributions that employ advanced characterization techniques, state-of-the-art mechanical testing, and computational modeling to investigate wood’s microstructure and mechanical behavior. Research focused on addressing challenges such as improving mechanical strength and toughness, enhancing dimensional stability and durability, optimizing adhesive bonding in engineered products, and understanding failure mechanisms under various loading conditions is of great interest. Moreover, studies that investigate the integration of wood with other materials in hybrid or multifunctional composites, along with innovations in processing, recycling, and sustainable manufacturing, are particularly relevant.

Types of Papers Solicited

This Special Issue invites the submission of original research articles, comprehensive review papers, and technical reports, but not limited to, the following topics:

- Characterization of wood by employing new techniques;

- Innovative applications of wood materials in the construction sector and life cycle assessments;

- Mechanical testing, modeling, and simulation of wood and wood-based composites;

- Design procedure and performance of wood–polymer, wood–metal, and hybrid composites;

- Development, characterization, and performance of engineered wood products (CLT, LVL, GLT, etc.);

- Adhesive and bonding technologies for wood and wood-based materials;

- Innovative modification techniques for improved performance (bending strength, stiffness, ductility, etc.);

- Modeling moisture movement in wood;

- Moisture distribution in wood.

Dr. Cristian Ioan Timbolmas
Dr. Francisco J. Rescalvo
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Forests is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• poplar
• glulam
• timber
• hybrid glulam beams
• Digital Image Correlation (DIC)
• Non-destructive testing (NDT)