Models to estimate longitudinal compressive strength of Brazilian hardwood based on apparent density

As wood is an orthotropic and natural material, there are several properties required for its use in civil construction. The apparent density has been used to estimate physical mechanical of wood, as it easy determine experimentally, unlike other determinations, which involve the equipment available only large research centers. Using Brazilian standard ABNT NBR 7190 linear non-linear regression models, this aimed evaluate their accuracy estimating compressive strength parallel fibers (fc0) well characteristic value (fc0,k). This study considered 72 tropical species from native forests that were divided into 4 classes standard. For set formed by all species, polynomial model was best fit, resulting a determination coefficient just over 70%.