COMPARING DURABILITY OF WOODEN PRODUCTS AGAINST MICROCEROTERMES DIVERSUS IN REGIONS OF JIROFT AND SISTAN OF IRAN.

Wood-based panels are used at inside and outside of various building, and termites feed mostly from these lignocelluloses materials. The aim of present study identifies biological resistance of four wooden products that include medium density fiberboard, 3-plywood and particleboard against Microcerotermes diversus termite via field method. Degradation grading the termite attack was performed in accordance with the ASTM D 1758-06 specifications. This research was conducted in Sistan region and Jiroft for 15 months. On the base of this result, all testing samples have been degraded. Both weight loss and grading values indicated that the 3-plywood and medium density fiberboard had the lowest and highest degradation, respectively. The weight loss and grading values of wood based panel specimens against the Microcerotermes diversus attack is the same. Field observations showed that the degradation of composite specimens located at Sistan are similar to Jiroft, except of particleboard specimen degradation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]