Mechanical properties of Gmelina arborea for engineering design

•Gmelina is a hardwood species with strength characteristics as those of softwoods.•The bending as well as the compressive strength parallel to the grain of Gmelina arborea follows the Weibull distribution.•Gmelina arborea seems to hold the future for the construction industry within the tropics.•Gmelina arborea has absolute potentials for use as a construction material.•The mechanical properties of Gmelina arborea are comparable with those of European spruce and pine. Gmelina arborea is a fast-growing hardwood species whose material properties according to available data have never been properly studied. This work presents an extensive study on the process of acquiring, preparing, testing and all analyses involved in determining the mechanical properties of Gmelina arborea for the design of load bearing structures. Samples obtained from 25-year-old Gmelina trees harvested from a plantation in South Western Nigeria, were transported to the laboratory of the Department of Timber Structures and Building Rehabilitation, University of Kassel where they were seasoned, prepared, and tested in accordance with European and German standards, afterwards, detailed statistical analyses were carried out on the experimental data. While the distribution functions in the Joint Committee for Structural Safety model code were validated for some material properties, they could not be validated for others. The material properties of the hardwood species were found to compare well with those of European softwood species and shows good potentials for use as a construction material.