Estimating The Density of Wood Specimens using Synthetic Aperture Radar Imaging

摘要

The density of wood is one of the most important physical properties when it comes to understanding itsmechanical behavior. The strength of a wood specimen is directly related to the amount of wood material in agiven volume, making the accurate determination of density essential for the analysis of wood structures. Theuse of non-destructive evaluation (NDE) techniques (e.g., microwave/radar, ultrasonic, stress wave, and X-ray)is a powerful approach for condition assessment of existing wood structures. Synthetic aperture radar (SAR)imaging, with its remote and subsurface sensing abilities, provides information about the mechanical propertiesof wood structures without obstructing their functionality. The objective of this paper is to use SAR imaging todetermine the differences in density in a variety of different wood species. Five 14 in.-by-2 in.-by-0.75 in. woodspecimens were manufactured. Each wood specimen was imaged vertically inside an anechoic chamber using a 10GHz SAR system. It was found that SAR amplitude distribution was a ected by the density of wood specimens.It was also found that the increase of wood density leads to the increase of contour area of SAR images.