Brash Failure

[Ric Brekne]

List.

I found the below, along with an awful lot of other half descriptions of 
brash wood on the net.   Many seem to hint at brashness being tied to 
wood rot. Chk out the following picture and comments about brash 
failure.   
http://home.earthlink.net/~failure-analysis/Ch5mod.htm#_Toc17729116  . 
This kind of brittleness is another entirely then the kind I usually 
think about when I think of the term brittle.  I think of something very 
dry and something that splinters into pieces quite easily, where as the 
definitions I find as to brash failure are more that of a kind of 
crumbling into bits that you find in rotten wood. Biological decay is 
sited many times as a cause for brashness in wood.  ie... fungus amungus :)


    "Brashness - Brittleness in wood, characterized by abrupt failure
    rather than splintering. Causes include reaction wood, juvenile
    wood, compression failure, high temperature and extremes of growth rate.
    This was from the glossary of Hoadly's Understanding wood.

    If you work with wood with any sensitivity, you will learn to
    recognize reaction wood, and should expect it in juvenile wood, but
    if it is over-cooked, I don't think there are any visible clues."

Cheers
RicB