Abstract:

Previous studies have shown that wood is easily subject to biodegradation by a variety of microorganisms, and decay fungi often cause the greatest damage. Fungi can cause dramatic decreases in strength properties during incipient decay in wood, because they can rapidly cause structural failure, even though the weight loss is minimal. Therefore, early detection of wood incipient decay is critical. Culturing and microscopy are currently considered the only definitive methods to detect and assess incipient decay, however, they are time consuming, and less accurate especially for detection of decay at very early stage. Therefore a satisfactory method for detecting the presence of decay during the incipient stage is very necessary. There were a lot of studies on incipient decay in wood and its detection in many countries, a few studies however was investigated in China. Available literature on the effects of incipient decay in wood on strength properties and the methods for detection of incipient decay were reviewed in this paper, for emphasizing the importance of the studies on incipient decay in wood.

Key words: wood, incipient decay, strength loss, detection, review