Effect of handling, packing and transportation on the moisture of timber wood

In order to improve the efficiency of moisture meters calibrations, we studied the effect of ambient humidity, sample handling, packing and transportation on the timber wood (spruce) moisture determination. It was proved by experiments that dry timber samples ( 12×12×2.512×12×2.5 cm) reach equilibrium within 30-40 days even when moisturizing them at a high relative air humidity (80 %). On the other hand, the major mass loss of moist samples placed at normal laboratory conditions was found to occur during the first few days while the first 5 days are critical. The effects of sample handling, packing and transportation were studied by means of interlaboratory comparison between CMI, CETIAT, INRIM, NIS and KRISS. The obtained results show that samples with moisture content less than 7 % tend to absorb small amount of water, whereas samples with moisture content larger than 15 % tend to desorb small amount of water during the handling and transporting even when using vacuum packing and short handling times