Development of High-Performance Wood (HPW) Piles for Deep Foundation Applications

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Timber piles are renewable, low-cost, and widely used displacement pile system. However, with the development of steel and concrete piles, the use of timber piles has steadily declined as timber piles have low and varying stiffness and strength properties. This work presents the development of High-Performance Wood (HPW) pile as a sustainable and resilient pile foundation alternative. HPW was produced through partial delignification (partially removing lignin and hemicellulose from the wood structure) and hot-pressing densification processes, which enhanced the mechanical properties of wood. The study first investigated the properties of the millimeter-scale (in thickness) HPW samples under various treatment conditions, including different chemical treatment concentrations, boiling times, and densification pressures. The modulus of rupture (MOR) of HPW reached its maximum strength at a lignin content of 10% for millimeter-scale samples, with an average increase of five times compared to untreated wood. The research was then advanced to centimeter-scale (in thickness) samples, where delignification pressure and sample thickness were found to influence the level of lignin removal and wood crystallinity. Finally, HPW pile and same-size untreated wood pile were instrumented and subjected to lateral load tests to investigate and compare the soil-structure interaction responses. The results showed that the HPW pile increased the failure lateral load by 60% compared to the property of the untreated wood pile.

2025 International Conference on Bio-mediated and Bio-inspired Geotechnics (ICBBG2025)

General session: Bio-mediated methods for infrastructure construction