Exploring Reliability of Oriented Strand Board's Tensile and Stiffness Strengths

In this paper, we apply insightful statistical reliability tools to manage and seek improvements in the strengths of Oriented Strand Board (OSB). As a part of the OSB manufacturing process, the product undergoes destructive testing at various intervals to determine compliance with customers' specifications. Workers perform these tests on sampled cross sections of the OSB panel to measure the tensile strength, also called internal bond (IB), in pounds per square inches until failure. Additional stiffness strength tests include parallel and perpendicular elasticity indices (EI), which are taken from cross sectional samples of the OSB panel in the parallel and perpendicular directions with respect to the orientation of the wood strands. We explore both graphically and statistically these "pressure-to-failures" of OSB. Also, we briefly comment on reducing sources of variability in the IB and EI of OSB.