My day

[mrtree2]

Thought people might be interested in this work. Spent today with Erk Brudi and Phillip van Wassenear pulling trees. Phillip now has the tools for doing SIA & SIM tests here in Canada.

Michael

 

[mrtree2]

Sorry did not get attacment last time, lets try again

 

[Stumper]

What, precisely, were you doing?(And BTW, Welcome to the site! )

 

[mrtree2]

We were doing pulling tests (elasto-inclino method) to determine the breaking and tipping safety of trees. If you are interested try Erk Brudi's site at www.tree-consult.org for papers detailing the backgrouind and methodology. Essentially by pulling a tree, measuring the force and the reaction (fibre elongation and root plate inclination) a safety rating for the tree in questio can be determined. There are lots of other things of importance (ie. wood strength, tree size and shape, locaton etc.) that you need to know, but in the end this methods gives a definite number to use when assessing a "hazard" tree.

Michael

P.S. that is Phillip installing elastometers (devices to measure elongation).

 

[Treeman14]

Not much info at that website.

 

[mrtree2]

try
http://www.tree-consult.org/html/eng/articles/statics.htm

the articles should download.

Michael

 

[Joe]

Michael, I'm surprised to hear some1 in Canada is using it. I've only heard of a person or 2 in the U.S. who were exposed to the sim system of tree evaluation in a way that could lead 1 to think they were trained to use it.
What is your impression of it?

Joe

 

[mrtree2]

Every thing I have read and heard about it indicates that it is the only denitive method of determining tree safety. Practically it is rather easy to do, the details are the killer though. It is a highly scientific method requiring alot of reading and engineering knowledge to understand. Understanding how to evaluate the tree is also very important, you need to look fo failure points to measure futher etc.

While the group in Europe provides a very convincing data set I still have lots of questions (though fully believe in the method).

Michael

 

[Nathan Wreyford]

I have posted it before but I like the SIA calculator on his site.

http://www.cede.cz/SIA_EN.ASP

I have worked a few trees that were controlled by Brudi. Seemed like a fair assesment on how much needed to be reduced. Most trees in this town are evaluated by VTA and often have some horrible reduction as a prescription.