Gamma attenuation studies in selected wood samples at varying moisture level.
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Date
2017
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Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana
Abstract
The moisture content of wood is known to have a significant influence on the wood‟s
mechanical properties. Changes in wood moisture content lead to changes of virtually all
physical and mechanical properties (e.g. strength and stiffness properties) of wood. Another
effect of changes of the wood moisture content is the associated shrinkage or swelling of
the material. The present study deals with the determination of mass attenuation coefficients
of Dek and Poplar wood samples at varying moisture levels using gamma ray transmission
method. Measurements were performed using NaI(Tl) scintillation detector and a radioactive
source 137Cs of energy 0.662 MeV. In order to vary moisture content of wood samples they
were placed in an oven for fixed durations. A graph was plotted between the measured
relative transmitted intensities against the thickness of wood samples and we observed the
mass attenuation coefficient from the slopes of the plots at different moisture levels. The
obtained mass attenuation coefficients were plotted against the relative moisture content of
wood samples and it showed that attenuation coefficient increases with decreasing moisture
content, i.e., mass attenuation coefficient is least for completely wet samples and is highest
for the oven dried samples. We also measured the densities of both wood samples at different
moisture levels by using radiation technique and conventional method and compared the
results and found very small percentage difference. Wood density is a vital parameter to have
knowledge about anatomical and physical properties of wood and thus it can be a useful
parameter for determination of quality of wood.
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