Determining the Distribution of Interstructural Openings in Wood

When dry, wood varies in void volume from about 45 percent at a specific gravity of 0.80 to 85 percent at a specific gravity of 0.22. Wood is not a very permeable material, because the intercommunication between fiber cavities in all woods occurs only through openings in the pit membranes that are usually submicroscopic in size. The fine openings control the ease of penetration of wood with preservatives, fire retardants, and pulping chemicals as well as the mechanism of the movement of water through wood during drying. The liquid chosen for this study was octyl alcohol. It wets wood readily, has low interfacial surface tension of 8.4 dynes per centimeter and its vapor pressure is relatively low. The flow effectiveness of the pores with a radius of 50 millimicrons was found to be 2.6 times that of the pores with a radius of 25 millimicrons. There must be about 6.2 times as many of the smaller pores as of the larger. The fact that a most probable pore radius exists for flow conditions does not imply that there is also a size with a most probable number of pores.

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