EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS OF ENGINEERING PROPERTIES OF SOME SELECTED AFRICAN TIMBER SPECIES FOR SUSTAINABLE BUILDING DEVELOPMENT

This research work aims at the experimental analysis of engineering properties of some selected African timber species for sustainable building development. A welldesigned questionnaire distributed to the correspondents was used to select the test samples. using availability and demand of the identified species, Mitragyna ciliata (Abura), Khaya senegalensis (Mahogany) and Terminalia superba (White Afarara) respectively were discovered as the three dorminant higher known species while Funtumia ebrifu (Ire), pterocarpus erinaceus (Madoobiya) and Albizia labbek (Ayinre) the three dorminant lesser known timber species. Samples of these species were obtained from Rijia lemu timber market, Kano Nigeria. Several experimental tests were conducted to determine the engineering properties of the samples in line with EN13183-1, EN408 and ASTM D193, using three- and four-point bending strength test methods. The formulated properties were used to acquire the characteristic values of the engineering properties in corespondant with EN384. The remaining engineering properties were calculated from the empirical formular given in EN338.