From the earliest times, wood has played a prominent role in human life. Wood with its aesthetic, workability, and sonority role in various musical instruments, since many decades or centuries ago has been recognized as a special and sought after material in many cultures. Besides its interesting properties which makes it able to act as vibratory plates of stringed musical instrument, the individual “recipes” and technical trade-offs of each maker raises curiosity to experiment this material – untreated wood and after various applied treatments. Our researchers from SP9 and SP10 focused their attention to wood thermal treatment and published valuable paper in Composite Structures journal.
Thermal treatment of wood has been considered as an environmentally friendly modification method for improving some of the physical, mechanical, and acoustical properties. Hygrothermal treatment can be considered artificial or accelerated aging by the elevated temperature. The effects of thermal modification are partly recoverable by moistening depending on temperature and relative humidity of treatment. Mild hygrothermal treatment improves the acoustical properties while it can be compared with artificial aging.
In the current study, the effects of mild hydrothermal treatment, as an accelerated aging treatment, on the physical and vibrational properties of spruce wood, as well as, the reversibility of changes by moistening have been investigated.
Our results show an improvement in wood vibrational properties. Hence, we found an increase in the physical properties of wood, which results in an improvement in wood durability in different environmental conditions. We also indicated a partial recovery of changes after moistening of treated wood, while partially recovery could be suspected to the physical aging of wood polymers while chemical changes in wood components such as hemicelluloses, celluloses, and lignin are suggested to be the reason for irreversible changes in physical and vibrational properties. According to our results, there was no obvious damage in wood structure while the irreversible changes present an improvement in vibrational properties by a decrease in damping, which could be due to the intermediate relative humidity of the treatment. It means that treated wood by this method can demonstrate improved acoustical properties.
You can check the article here.
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