Engineered Flooring from Low-Density Plantation Hardwood: Evaluation of Long-Term In-Service Trials

The use of short-rotation hardwood plantation species has been perceived to be unsuitable forflooring until recently, due to the lower densities. This study assesses the performance of a low-density planta-tion hardwood species,Eucalyptus nitensin engineeredflooring applications. The selection of a suitable timberspecies forflooring has conventionally been based on its market acceptance or value and on its hardness toensure minimal indentations or damages. While both of these reasons have determinedflooring species selec-tion, this is becoming more difficult as popular species is less available due to increasingflooring demand, andthe diminishing supply of native timbers due to government regulations on harvesting and conservation. Typi-cally, the species hardness is determined by static tests in the laboratory. Although these tests can comparespecies hardness, they might not reliably indicate an end product’s performance, especially with engineeredflooring. Despite the global interest in timberflooring manufacturing, investigations on the assessment of alter-native testing methods to static hardness, methods to replicate in-service behavior, timberflooring quality deter-mination, and characterization of timber properties forflooring applications are still scarce. In this study,in-service trials were conducted on solid and densifiedE. nitensboards and engineeredflooring prototypes withE. nitenstop layers, to better understand product behavior when exposed to moderate traffic with distinct tem-perature and RH variations. Dynamic impact hardness tests using the falling ball indentation method adaptedfrom ASTM D 2394 were conducted to assess the surface hardness of the tested prototypes.E. nitensengi-neered prototype performance was comparable to the existing market products used as controls. This demon-strates the potential to use plantation-grownE. nitensin engineeredflooring applications in domestic dwellings.