stress test faliure

[taffupatree]

Heard an interesting tale today. One of my friends is part of the local La team. There was a red oak in one of the local parks, Tree in question was being attacked big style by granoderma and had quite a heavy lean.Because of this was picked out to have some stress testing done. Think the park manager was keen to keep the tree for long as possible so wanted to be sure it was safe. From what i can gather testing involved fitting micrometers to the trunk, Then setting pull line/winch and putting some load on the tree. Trying to simulate wind/storm force i guess? consultant that was doing the testing has various comp' programmes with simulations according to dbh, amount of rot etc. im not sure exactly what load was estimated the tree could take but at about 1.6 tonne loading the tree gave up. my mate said there was a bang like a gun going off and a big shake of the ground and a crack bout 3 fingers width and running from 18" to bout 6 metres appeared. because this type of testing is quite rare there were bout 20-30 people watching-various arbs,other consultants etc and apparently nearly everyone jumped outta there skin. apparently the guy that was doing the testing was stumped,tree should have been sound for alot more pull then what was exerted on it......anybody heard anything about this?

[slack ma girdle]

HA Ha Ha, :heeeelllllooooo:

pity about the tree

[taffupatree]

it was a nice tree......mate said it then caused a bit of disscussion with the arbs watching as to how they would then fell/dismantle it. bloody typical!

[David Humphries]

Do you know at all which Ganoderma it was?

 

Resinaceum perhaps?

 

 

 

 

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