The majority of mechanical wood properties are negatively affected by wood moisture within the hygroscopic range, disregarding the stress relaxation of wood at very low moisture contents (MC). In contrast, the structural integrity and thus the brittleness of wood appears to be positively affected by moisture. This study aimed at examining the effect of wood MC on the structural integrity of wood between the oven-dry state and MC well above cell wall saturation (CWS), i.e., at approx. 100 %. The Resistance to Impact Milling (RIM) originating from High-Energy Multiple Impact (HEMI) tests increased with increasing MC in the hygroscopic range, which might be explained by stress relaxation and ‘gluing effects’ inside the cell wall polymer structure, resulting from a growing network of hydrogen bonds on cell wall level.
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