Mechanical properties of Guatemalan pine 2 by 4’s

The current industrial practice in Guatemala is to use the allowable mechanical property values of visually graded U.S. southern pine to design engineered structures because these values are not available for Guatemalan pines. Data on graded lumber are important because truss manufacturing plants in Guatemala use significant volumes of pine. Mechanical property values were determined by conducting bending tests on 8-foot- (2.44-m-) long, nominal 2- by 4-inch (38- by 89-mn) pine, primarily Pinus oocarpa, from two regions in Guatemala. The lumber was dried to 18 percent moisture content and visually graded using U.S. standards. Results of this study indicate that visually grading lumber using U.S. procedures gives an acceptable separation of property values among grades of Pinus oocarpa, and Guatemalan pines have greater density, flexural strength, and stiffness than U.S. southern pine. Opportunities exist to reduce the waste of Guatemalan pines by increasing the use of visually graded lumber and adopting standards for a systematic derivation of allowable property values.

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