Japanese larch is one of the wood species commonly used for detached houses. However, effectively utilizing the scrap wood generated from thinning out Japanese larch forests presents a significant challenge that needs to be addressed. In this paper, the authors evaluated the bending properties and the bending fatigue, as well as decay resistance, of compressed wood made from thinned Japanese larch. Regarding decay resistance, the method of promoting artificial decay test, developed by the authors, utilized Tyromyces palustris, a brown-rot fungus, as a model for wood-rotting fungi in their experiments. The study yielded the following typical conclusions: 1) Results from the 4-point bending tests show that the coefficient of determination (R² ) obtained from the linear regression equation between densities and bending properties is greater than that of the compression ratio and its properties. 2) The bending Young's modulus and bending strength of the test specimens, which underwent artificial decay for 6 weeks, decreased by 36% and 56% of their pre-decay values, respectively. Those compressed specimens decreased by 8% and 27% of their pre-decay values. 3) The bending fatigue properties, as a dynamic characteristic of compressed wood, are superior to those of uncompressed wood. The compressed wood has fewer fracture modes than the uncompressed wood because the compression processing forces all the annual rings to align in the same horizontal direction.

In recent years, flexible insulation materials with excellent thermal insulation performance have been developed, inspired by natural systems such as polar bear hair. However, the effect of different internal geometric dimensions of hollow woven structures on thermal insulation properties has not been fully investigated. In this study, the thermal insulation properties (thermal conductivity and thermal diffusivity) of woven structures with hollow fibers and the effect of different internal geometric dimensions on the thermal insulation properties were investigated. When designing a hollow woven structure as a thermal insulating structure, it is necessary to adopt a model with a relative density greater than 0.05. The results obtained from the study of different internal geometric dimensions indicate that the weave width is the dominant parameter that improves the thermal insulation properties. The graphical summary of the heat transfer properties for each material confirms the dominance of the thermal insulation properties of the hollow woven structure.