Correlating Off-axis Tension Tests to Shear Modulus of Wood-based Panels

The weakness of existing relationships correlating off-axis modulus of elasticity E� to shear mod­ ulus G12 for wood composite panels is demonstrated through presentation of extensive experimental data. A new relationship is proposed that performs better than existing equations found in the literature. This relationship can be manipulated to calculate the shear modulus G12 of orthotropic specimens such as wood-based panels solely from off-axis tension (or compression) tests. The proposed relationship reduces to classical theory for the isotropic case. In all cases tested, the newly proposed relationship is a better fit to the data than the traditional orthotropic elasticity equation.