Physical and Mechanical Properties of Four Varieties of Ironwood

Bulian or ironwood (Eusideroxylon zwageri Teijsm. & Binn.) belongs to the family ofLauraceae. The most valuable characteristic of ironwood is very durable and an excellentphysical and mechanical properties. Four varieties of ironwood namely exilis, grandis, ovoidusand zwageri had been identified based on morphological characteristics and genetic marker. Ithas never been determined that there is a correlation between mechanical properties of wood andthe varieties. Four logs samples were collected from Senami forest, Jambi, Indonesia. ThePhysical and mechanical property test was referred to British Standard (BS) 375-57, includingmoisture content, density, shrinkage, bending strength. Some parameters of physical andmechanical properties were not significantly different among investigated logs. These were dryair moisture content, tangential shrinkage green to oven dry, green hardness and greencompression parallel to grain. Other parameters were significantly different among investigatedlogs. The cluster analysis based on physical and mechanical properties shows that zwageri andovoidus formed one cluster with a higher degree of similarity than another cluster, which wasformed by grandis and exilis. This dendrogram is synchronized with the dendrogram which wasformed based on other morphological structures of ironwood