Verification of Weibull’s Theory of Brittle Fracture to Meranti’s Timber Loaded in Tension Parallel to the Grain

Abstract. Timber is a well-known brittle material under tensile load and is also an inhomogeneous material. Although Weibull’s theory of brittle fracture is well established for softwood timber, the verification of this theory to hardwood species, particularly to the timber of local species is very limited. This paper presents the verification of Weibull’s theory to local timber of Meranti species loaded in tension parallel to the grain. The theoretical prediction is compared to the test results. It is found that the variation of tensile strength at several probabilities is in close agreement with theoretical prediction. Two values of Weibull’s parameters were proposed in the formulation to predict the tensile strength for local timber. It is also found that the tensile strength of local timber is affected by its volume.