Influence of selected environmental factors on moisture dynamics of beech wood

Bukovina sodi med najpomembnejše lesne vrste v Sloveniji. Žal uporaba bukovine zelo zaostaja za prirastkom, zato je treba nujno razviti dodatne aplikacije za rabo bukovega lesa. Ena izmed neizkoriščenih priložnosti je tudi raba za manj zahtevne konstrukcije na prostem. V primeru, da uporabljamo bukovino na prostem, moramo les na takšen ali drugačen način zaščititi. V zadnjem obdobju vedno bolj pridobiva na pomenu termična modifikacija in uporaba voskov, zato smo ti dve rešitvi uporabili tudi v tej raziskavi. Tako smo odpornost bukovine na navlaževanje spremljali v laboratorijskih razmerah in terenskih testih. Pred laboratorijskimi poizkusi smo vzorce izpostavili različnim abiotskim in biotskim dejavnikom razkroja ter določili njihov vpliv na navzemanje vode v les. Izkazalo se je, da se je najbolje obnesel termično modificiran les, impregniran s suspenzijo naravnih voskov. Po drugi strani so abiotski in biotski dejavniki razkroja močno poslabšali odpornost proti navlaževanju bukovine in termično modificirane bukovine.Beech is one of the most important tree species in Slovenia. Unfortunately, there is much more beech wood incremented annually than consumed. Thus, it is of great importance to develop new applications for use of beech wood. One of the possible solutions is use of beech in outdoor applications. However, if beech is used outdoor it has to be somehow protected. In the recent period, non-biocidal methods of wood protection such as thermal modification and use of wax emulsions are gaining more and more importance, hence we applied these two methods to beech wood in present research as well. During the research, water exclusion efficacy of wood was determined. Wood was subjected to various abiotic and biotic degradation protocols. The results exhibited that the best water performance was achieved in wax treated thermally modified beech. Water performance of wax treated wood was not affected by abiotic and biotic degradation factors. By contrast, the aging protocols applied considerably reduced water exclusion efficacy of beech and thermally modified beech wood