I am currently working on designing a teeterboard for the circus (a seesaw that people jump up and down on the ends), and need some advice on my methodology for wood selection. The primary wood will be Vic ash (a.k.a Tasmanian Oak), with a possible second layer of pine underneath. Currently i plan to do 3 point bend tests on each wood standalone, and with various thicknessses as a double or triple layer (ash/pine, pine/ash, ash/pine/ash, pine/ash/pine etc). This will be used to get material data.
My primary concerns are with scalability, i.e can the results stress values obtained be applied to the full size modeldue to the somewhat unpredictable and irregular nature of wood. My other concern is incorporating the glue into analysis. I do not know how to get a reasonable theoretical calculation for the multi-layer board, unlike the single board for which the calculations are extremely simple.