Wood is classified as one of the most common building materials due to its diverse nature. Casuarina is considered one of the fast-growing trees in relatively arid countries such as Egypt. This paper aims to test the mechanical properties for the most two common species of Casuarina in Egypt, which are glauca and cunninghamiana. This research mostly focused on testing these two species for compression parallel to the grain, compression perpendicular to the grain, and static bending; tension parallel to the grain, tension perpendicular to the grain and cleavage tests were only tested on glauca because cunninghamiana was excluded after the first three tests due to the high variability and inconsistency in its results. All the tests were done according to the current standards for wood. The results show that the properties of the glauca species of casuarina wood are promising because it has sufficient strength that could enable it to be used in several structural applications.

In past years, many electrical transmission lines have failed during downbursts. This study is part of a research program aimed at understanding the behavior of transmission lines under localized winds. Most downbursts need to be modeled using computational fluid dynamic (CFD) models; this is not an easy task for engineers in general. This paper focuses on replacing the complicated velocities obtained from CFD models with simplified loads that represent, in a more practical fashion, the critical downburst configurations causing the guyed transmission towers to fail. Different options are considered in terms of the location and nature of the design velocity associated with different configurations. The profile of the horizontal velocity is developed. A practical simplified load corresponding to each of the critical configurations is developed. Detailed steps of the conductors’ reaction calculations are provided. A simplified procedure is developed for designing downburst-loaded guyed transmission towers.

Moisture content is considered one of the most important factors that affect the mechanical and physical properties of wood. The Moisture content effect have to be studied carefully for the structural use of wood. The objective of this paper is to study the moisture content effect on the mechanical properties for two types of wood which are Casuarina Glauca and Casuarina Cunninghamiana. Small clear wood samples were tested in different moisture contents (Approximately 60%, 40%, and 20%) in compression parallel to the grain, compression perpendicular to the grain, static bending and tension parallel to the grain. All the tests were done according to the standards of ASTM for wood D-143. The effect of moisture content was assessed through the results of the modulus of elasticity and the strength.