Analysis of Wood Pore Characteristics with Mercury Intrusion Porosimetry and X-ray Micro- Computed Tomography

The size and distribution of wood pores greatly influence its properties like density, thermal conductivity and permeability as well as acoustical property. Different techniques were developed to measure wood pore characteristic parameters. In this paper, mercury intrusion porosimetry (MIP) and X-ray Micro-computed tomography (μCT) were used to characterize pore characteristics of Populus L. woods. Pore size distribution and total porosity results were achieved. As for MIP measurement, the pore size of Populus L. woods ranged from 50 to 400 μm. The pore volume in the range of 313-2513.7 nm and 8-400 μm for 0.23 g.cm-3 sample was significantly larger than that of 0.40 g.cm-3 sample, but the pore volume in the range of 2513.7-7878 nm was less. And the pore distribution tendency for μCT measurement between 2.84~36.86 μm was similar with MIP. According to the results of μCT and intrusion–extrusion curves hysteresis regions of MIP, the existence of ink-bottle effect of MIP was confirmed. So the MIP measured pore-size distribution of micro-voids was larger than actual value.