This article presents a study on failure criteria applied to wood, specifically the criteria of Hill, Tsai-Hill, Tsai-Wu, Hoffman and Norris. The theoretical basis of the research involves a development from the conventional failure theory with an application to orthotropic materials. Thus, an analysis of failure criteria was performed, in particular the failure envelope curve achievement from the mechanical properties of two Brazilian wood species, Pinus elliotti and Goupia glabra. A comparison between the obtained envelopes curves with experimental results, which were obtained from biaxial compressive tests, shear tests and off-axis uniaxial tests, was performed to evaluate the analyzed criteria. In general, the Hoffman criterion presented the best result for strength evaluation of these wood species. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd.35 703712Jones, R.M., (1975) Mechanics of Composite Materials, , McGraw Hill Kogakusha, TokyoTsai, S.W., Hahn, H.T., (1980) Introduction to composite materials, , Technomic Publishing Company, LancasterBodig, J., Jayne, B.A., (1982) Mechanics of wood and wood composites, , Van Nostrand Reinhold Company Inc, New YorkMascia, N.T., Nicolas, E.A., Evaluation of tsai-wu criterion and hankinsońs formula for a Brazilian wood species by comparison with experimental off-axis strength tests (2012) Wood Mater Sci Eng, 7, pp. 49-58Azzi, V.D., Tsai, S.W., Anisotropic strength of composites (1965) Exp Mech, pp. 283-289Hoffman, O., The brittle strength of ortotropic materials (1967) J. Compos. Mater., pp. 200-206. , 2-1Tsai, S.W., Wu, E.M., A general theory of strength for anisotropic materials (1971) J Compos Mater, pp. 58-80Suhling, J.C., Constitutive relations and failure predictions for nonlinear orthotropic media (1985), Pennsylvania: Dissertation, University of Wisconsin;Norris, C.B., Strength of orthotropic materials subjected to combined stress (1950), Report No. 18126, US. Department of Agriculture, Forest Products Laboratory, Madison, WITodeschini, R., Uniaxial and biaxial tests for evaluation of anisotroppic criteria applied to Wood. (In Portuguese) Master thesis, School of Civil Engineering (2009), University of Campinas, Brazil(2008), Mathematica® v7.0, Champaign, Il: Wolfram Research, Inc(1997), ABNT NBR 7190: Design of wood structures. Rio de Janeiro. Brazil