Quality Evaluation of Engineered Wood by THz-TDS

Abstract

This study attempts simultaneous prediction of grain angle, density and moisture content by THz time domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS) which has sufficient spatial resolution and transparency for wood. Terahertz waves transmitted through wood contain information on moisture content, density, grain angle and crystallinity of the sample. In this study, we measured spectra of 14 kinds of wood (5 soft wood, 9 hard woods) at various moisture contents and air-dried douglas fir while rotating the sample against the polarization of the terahertz wave. It was shown that the fiber orientation, density and moisture content of wood can be predicted simultaneously from the calculated complex permittivity.