Influence of Biological Pretreatment of Wooden Dowels on Strength of Rotary Welded Joints

Abstract

Welding wood achieves joints whose strength is comparable with the strength of glued joints. When welding, the top of the dowel is not welded because of the lack of melted lignin. To achieve satisfactory strength of a welded joint, it is necessary to optimize the main welding factors such as interference fit, frequency of dowel rotation, welding depth, welding duration, etc. There are also other ideas to increase the strength of welded joints. One of these ideas involves pre-treatment of dowels with wood decaying fungi to increase the proportion of lignin on the surface of the dowels and thus in the melt. This paper presents the results of the impact of pretreatment of beech wood dowels with the brown-rot fungus Gloeophyllum trabeum. Results showed that biological pretreatment of the dowels had a significant impact on the pull-out force of the joint. Pretreatment for 4 weeks caused a substantial increase in pull-out force, while pretreatment for 2 weeks did not have a positive effect on the strength of the welded joint. Grooved dowels exhibited an increase in pull-out force of 26.9%, while smooth dowels had an increase of 21.1% of pull-out force. Research also determined additional vibrations during welding.