TIP Failure

BEH2202 said:
Last week I had a very large sweet gum branch break out on me while load testing. Lesson learned . . . always do a load test. This was a canopy anchored SRT set up. The limb was about 10 degrees from vertical in orientation. My anchor was placed about 4 feet above where the branch failed. The TIP was clearly visible from the ground. After inspecting the failed piece I found no indication of a problem that would have caused the incident. It looked like healthy wood. Take a look at the photos and let me know what you think. Following good procedures saves lives.
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We were just talking about TIP failures at our morning briefing and my boss shared a conversation with Julian Dunster (author of TRAQ manual) regarding the impact of drought stress on wood characteristics, specifically strength and branch angles. Key points were drouggt stress weakens limbs and can cause them to droop (vs drop) over time. This weakness can persist for years as it seems to cause a structural change in the wood. We have noticed this in trees here in Seattle after an extremely hot/dry summer last year, even though I understand mosture is above average this year so far. Many trees are seeming more brittle this summer than is typical for those species.

Regarding Sweetgum in particular, I have very limited experience with this species, but I did break a limb very unexpectedly a few weeks back. That made me very wary of the species. Perhaps this is compounded with the drought issues summarized above.
 
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In my experience sweet gum is fairly brittle.

This time of year sweet gum is loaded with fruit that can be quite a heavy load.

It is very common this time of year for sweet gum to have limbs break out in minor winds.

Glad this one broke when tested!


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I had a maple do something similar to me a couple weeks back. TIP was about 3-4" in diameter. It broke on me about 5ft off the ground and I was using DdRT. Once I got another line set and into the tree I had issues with other horizontal leads giving out under minimal load (majority of my load was in my hardness and the rest in my lanyard). Seemed really sketchy to me and the old timer I had with me was pretty awestruck as well.

Has anyone else had issues with maple like that?
 
Kris Fugate said:
I had a maple do something similar to me a couple weeks back. TIP was about 3-4" in diameter. It broke on me about 5ft off the ground and I was using DdRT. Once I got another line set and into the tree I had issues with other horizontal leads giving out under minimal load (majority of my load was in my hardness and the rest in my lanyard). Seemed really sketchy to me and the old timer I had with me was pretty awestruck as well.

Has anyone else had issues with maple like that?
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Interesting observations. What type of maple, and where are you located?
 
LimbLoppa said:
I have a large sweetgum in my front yard. I keep it pruned and baby that bitch, cause it's my only hardwood tree. This year we have had extensive rainfall / storms galore. After almost every storm I am finding broken out limbs- not just little limbs, large limbs-6" plus in diameter 20 ft or more in length. This has never happened before - I've lived here for more than 12 years. Do you think the abundance of rainfall has contributed to the weakness of the wood? I know the Va/ West Va areas have experienced above average rainfall as well, so I'm just hypothesizing.
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I have no answers, but that story is just amazing to me. Maybe it has to do with previous drought? I think later in this thread than your post someone mentioned a weakening that seems to happen due to drought conditions.

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Edit: Here it is. @cbachmann said: "We were just talking about TIP failures at our morning briefing and my boss to united a conversation with Julian Dunster (author of TRAQ manual) regarding the impact of drought stress on wood characteristics, specifically strength and branch angles. Key points were drouggt stress weakens limbs and can cause them to droop (vs drop) over time. This weakness can persist for years as it seems to cause a structural change in the wood. We have noticed this in trees here in Seattle after an extremely hot/dry summer last year, even though I understand mosture is above average this year so far. Many trees are seeming more brittle this summer than is typical for those species."
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Scary stuff. I guess you don't want to put a picnic table under that tree, then.

Tim
 
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