  Wood as the most important natural and renewable building material plays an
important role in the construction sector. Nevertheless, its hygroscopic
character basically affects all related mechanical properties leading to
degradation of material stiffness and strength over the service life.
Accordingly, to attain reliable design of the timber structures, the influence
of moisture evolution and the role of time- and moisture-dependent behaviors
have to be taken into account. For this purpose, in the current study a 3D
orthotropic elasto-plastic, visco-elastic, mechano-sorptive constitutive model
for wood, with all material constants being defined as a function of moisture
content, is presented. The corresponding numerical integration approach, with
additive decomposition of the total strain is developed and implemented within
the framework of the finite element method (FEM). Moreover to preserve a
quadratic rate of asymptotic convergence the consistent tangent operator for
the whole model is derived.
  Functionality and capability of the presented material model are evaluated by
performing several numerical verification simulations of wood components under
different combinations of mechanical loading and moisture variation.
Additionally, the flexibility and universality of the introduced model to
predict the mechanical behavior of different species are demonstrated by the
analysis of a hybrid wood element. Furthermore, the proposed numerical approach
is validated by comparisons of computational evaluations with experimental
results.
