Nowadays, environment effects, and in particular the reduction of greenhouse effect, are one of the most important issues that are of great concern to the research community. As per the Kyoto protocol and the COP 21 meeting, the use of wood in civil engineering structures reminds one solution for the regulation of these effects by minimizing both CO 2 emission and the use of grey energy. Since the wood mechanical behaviour is quite complex due to its anisotropic constitution, the coalescence of various defects (nodes, orientation of annual rings, …) during its service life, the increasing use of wood as structural material in civil engineering is a major challenge, and needs to increase scientific efforts in understanding the mechanical behaviour of timber structures. In order to bring some responses to these scientific problems, the JCJC 2013 CLIMBOIS research project (Moutou Pitti et al. 2014) is dealing with the effects of climatic and mechanical variations on the durability of notched timber structures. Material cracking is one of the most important factors involved in the collapse of structures. However, if the crack initiation is detected earlier, and the monitoring of the crack propagation within the materials is under control, the structural integrity of buildings can be easily evaluated by sending alerts. Within the framework of this research project, the study carried out herein is devoted to both an identification of failure