Page:Professional papers on Indian Engineering (second series).djvu/111

 No. CCXCVI.

NOTE ON EXPERIMENTS ON STRENGTH AND ELASTICITY OF ASINA TIMBER.

By G. R. BIRD, Esq., Exec. Engineer.

THE Asina tree (Terminalia Tomentosa), also called the Hasna, Arsena or Asan, grows in great abundance in the forests of the north of Oudh. It was used by the natives, in the King's time, for roofing purposes, as is testified by its existence in some of the old buildings at Lucknow. From annexation the demand practically ceased, owing to the cheapness of sal timber, imported from Nepal, and to the supposed untrustworthy character of Asina and its liability to be attacked by dry rot. The in- creasing scarcity and consequent high price of sal eventually brought Asina again into request, and since 1871 it has been very generally used throughout the province for temporary and semi-permanent buildings. It is moreover likely to retain its position as a second class timber, and as there are no published data relating to its ultimate strength or elasticity, (the Roorkee Treatise being also silent on the subject,) some rough experi- ments were made in 1877, and the results obtained therefrom may be found useful, till they are superseded by more reliable information derived from a greater number of trials.

The pieces experimented upon, five in number, were taken at random from among a quantity of battens sawn up for a building then in process of construction. They were planed down to a uniform section, and suc- cessively placed on two supports and weighted in the usual way. The various observations were recorded in a table, see page 67.

Very little time could be spared for these experiments, owing to an 65