Figure 5.

Experimental result of longitudinal splitting of a hollow trunk of softwood (Araucaria cunninghamia) subjected to two opposite compressive point loads, which may be used to mimic the failure mode of tangential cracking due to cross-sectional flattening during bending. However, it is important to note that the loading here is not a realistic representation of the internal force generated by flattening during bending, and hence its bending moment at cracking given in [12] is expected to deviate from equation (2.13) derived using more realistic loading condition in this study.