Abstract
Recently, as people's interest in wood has increased, the use of wood as household and landscape decking materials has increased. As the deck material, imported wood such as synthetic wood, Ipe, and Malas was used in addition to the existing preserved wood, but recently deck use has been activated as part of the activation of domestic materials. As an important quality factor in the selection of such decking materials, various durability along with weatherability for long - term use is required for maintenance. Generally used tropical hardwoods have excellent weatherability and durability without additional preservative treatment. However, the domestic larch is a wood species with a higher specific gravity and durability than ordinary conifers. However, it has not yet been used as a deck material due to lack of comparative studies on its characteristics. Therefore, hardness and durability of wood were measured using six specimens of Ipe, Massaranduba, Malas, Douglas-fir, Larch and Torrefied-Larch. Density Profile was used to measure the density, and Brinell hardness test and resistance test against momentary impact were carried out for the test of resistance to static load. Also, The hardness and durability of wood were measured by castor test with resistance test against dynamic load, as well as, nail down test by experiment on surface hardness and durability. As a result of the experiment, the hardness was increased in proportion to the density, and it was confirmed that the imported lumber was harder and durable than the domestic larch.
