Moisture content-water potential relationship of red pine sapwood above the fiber saturation point and determination of the effective pore size distribution
1996
Tremblay, C. | Cloutier, A. | Fortin, Y.
The pressure membrane and pressure plate techniques were used to establish the moisture content-water potential (M-psi) relationship of red pine (Pinus resinosa Ait.) sapwood in desorption above the fiber saturation point. The moisture content-water potential relationship is required for the development of a model of drying considering the gradient of water potential as the driving force of moisture in wood. This relationship was established at 18, 56 and 85 degrees C for radial desorption. The results obtained demonstrate that water potential psi increases with temperature T at a given moisture content M. There is no significant variation of delta psi/delta T with temperature. Also, there is no plateau at intermediate moisture contents as was the case for the M-psi relationship of aspen sapwood established in a previous work. The effective integral and differential pore size distributions inferred from the M-psi relationship are also presented. The largest proportion of effective pore openings was found for a radius of 0.2 micrometers. This value can be related to the pit membrane openings of red pine.
Show more [+] Less [-]AGROVOC Keywords
Bibliographic information
This bibliographic record has been provided by National Agricultural Library