Effect of Creep in the Fundamental Frequency and Stability of a Slender Wooden Column of Composite Section

Creep is a phenomenon that can occur in wooden structures since wood is a viscoelastic material. Creep may change the purely elastic parameters determined in wood characterization initial tests, as its behavior depends on the rheology of the material, even under a constant stress level. Mathematically, creep can be characterized by models in which the immediate elastic deformation is increased by a viscous deformation, resulting in a temporal function. For this reason, the calculation of the natural frequency of vibration and the stability verification of a slender column should include the reducing effects of stiffness both of axial force and creep. The first one can be considered through the geometrical portion and the second one by the introduction, in the conventional portion, of a variable elasticity modulus over time, obtained in relation to the adopted rheological model. A numerical simulation was performed to evaluate the aspects above, considering a bar compressed by a force at the free end equivalent to 10% of the Euler critical force, plus its own weight, adopting a rheological model with three parameters for the variation of the elasticity modulus. The results show differences of 60% and 50% for the frequency and elasticity modulus, besides defining the exact instant of column collapse in the case of its non-observance.