Acoustic Studies on Wood

Several acoustic techniques have been used to determine elastic and damping properties of trees, logs and beams. Time of flight (TOF) measurements in the outerwood of 14-year-old Pinus radiata trees showed that pruning operations increased the outerwood stiffness by up to 25% compared with unpruned trees. However, at the most 5% to 10% of the increased stiffness can be explained by the fact that the outerwood of the pruned trees is free of knots, as TOF measurements are little affected by knots. Thus, it is not known what causes the increase of outerwood stiffness in the pruned trees. One possible explanation could be a smaller microfibril angle (MFA) in the S2 layer of the outerwood cells, which would cause a significant increase in stiffness. Thinning operations decreased the outerwood stiffness by up to 8%. In small Eucalyptus nitens and Pinus radiata logs, which had branch nodes and nodal whorls at specific locations, MOE calculations (using the resonance technique) based on different harmonics gave different results. This indicates that defects do interact with acoustic waves. Acoustic tests on laminated beams with artificial defects (holes filled with dowels) at specific locations also had a significant impact on the MOE. Moreover, it was evident that the damping ratio (evaluated from the Q- factor) of the beams increased with increasing diameter of the holes. However, it was found that holes in laminated beams decreased stiffness while branch nodes and nodal whorls increased stiffness. This shows that relatively small defects, occupying a small volume of the beam, have an impact on acoustic measurements. It is not appropriate to base the MOE calculation on a single harmonic, considering that different harmonics investigate different parts of the specime