Edge screw withdrawal resistance in conventional particleboard and OSB: Influence of the particles type

This research was based on presumption that the changes in size and shape of wood particles are expected to have certain impact on the particleboard quality in general. Since the conventional particleboard (PB) and oriented strand board (OSB) were built of the quite diverse wood particles, they present interesting specimens in the comparison tests. In this work, the influence of the wood particles type on the edge screw holding performance of conventional particleboard and OSB was investigated. Those tests were obtained with the screw diameters of 4.0 mm, 4.5 mm and 5 mm. Depth of embedment was 30 mm for all tests and with the pilot-hole diameter kept in the range of 80-90% in respect of the screw root diameter. Additional tests of the thickness density profile and tensile strength perpendicular to the surface of the board were conducted. Since the middle layer structure of the particleboard embeds the screw body, both mentioned parameters are considered important in the aspect of the quality of the edge screw holding performance. In order to have further insight into the conformation of the middle layer the image survey was obtained on the split board section presenting the surface of the middle layer. Significant differences in the SWR performance of OSB and PB was recorded at all screw diameters. For the screw withdrawal tests parameters OSB samples showed 56-73% superior mean values then conventional PB. On the other hand, the OSB showed wider dispersions of measured withdrawal forces at all screw diameters, which might present some of the problems in certain engineering and project calculations