Density Evaluation of Pinus oocarpa Submitted to Heat Treatment

To use more durable wood as a building material, thermal rectification is an alternative technique to reduce the wood decay against xylophages. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of the heat treatment on the density of Pinus oocarpa in temperatures at 200, 220 and 240°C during 30, 60 and 90 minutes. The samples were characterized by mass loss and gravimetric yield in order to verify the variations in the density of thermally treated wood. We found that heat treatment combinations up to 60 minutes and 220°C showed little variation in the density values. For longer time and at higher temperatures, due to the thermal degradation of the wood, there was a wide variation on density values accompanied by a decreasing tendency of the density. The highest density value was obtained at a time-temperature combination of 90 minutes and 220°C and the lowest at 60 minutes and 240°C. These results suggest that to apply the heat treated wood in construction purposes, better results were observed for thermal rectification that had little loss of density, since this property is directly related to less variation in strength and stiffness of wood.