Bending Strength of Glulam from Selected Malaysian Hardwood Timber

Malaysian government has already built the first glulam structure in Malaysia with the aim of demonstrating the potentialities of using indigenous hardwood timber for glulam. Since Malaysia possesses a vast variety of timber species, hence there is a need to identify suitable species for glulam manufacturing. This paper presents the bending performance of Malaysian hardwood glulam beams, manufactured from different categories namely heavy, medium and light hardwood timbers. A series of tests were carried out on the glulam beam that includes bending test, delamination test and shear test of glue line. Results in this study will be useful to manufacturers interested in using Malaysian hardwood for glulam beams.