Moisture Content and its Effect on Wood
“There is no wood without water.” There is much more to know behind this simple rule, as wood is always strongly influenced by moisture, so much so that all its properties are affected by its moisture content and are conditioned by the relative humidity of the environment. It is important for designers to know how water affects the raw material and its properties in order to design and develop a project.
The webinar is organised into the following thematic sections:
- Why wood is a hygroscopic material
- Different types of water in wood
- Equilibrium moisture content
- How to measure the moisture content in wood
- Wood deformations with varying moisture content
- Shrinkage and swelling
- Effects of shrinkage and swelling on wood.
Giacomo Goli
An associate professor at the University of Florence, he holds a degree in Forest Sciences. In 2003, he obtained his PhD in Wood Science at the University of Florence and in “Mécanique des métiers de l’Ingénieur” at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Arts et Métiers (ENSAM) in Cluny, France. His main fields of research include cultural wood heritage (conservation, monitoring and control of environmental conditions, analysis of manufactured products), wood processing (modelling of forces and shear strength during processing with different grain orientations), development of new wood-based materials (modified wood and modified wood-based materials). He is involved in regional and national research on the quality of wood and wood-based products and international research on wood processing and modification technologies.
Paola Mazzanti
A researcher at the University of Florence, she holds a degree in Forest Sciences from the University of Florence and a PhD in Wood Science and Technology from the same university from 2008. Since then, she has worked on the conservation of cultural wood heritage, studying the hygro-mechanical behaviour of wood, wood-water relations, the rheological behaviour of wood and its bio-deterioration. She collaborates with national and international institutions researching the conservation of the cultural heritage of wood.
Marco Togni
An associate professor at the University of Florence since 2001, he holds a degree in Forest Sciences from the University of Florence and obtained a PhD in Wood Science from the same university in 1995. His main fields of research are concerned with wood for structural use: assessment of the mechanical properties of ancient timber structural components and structural systems, in situ inspection and diagnosis, and the characterisation of timber for structural use. He is involved in regional and national research on the quality, uses and characterisation of timber.
