Combining MRI and X-ray CT to monitor fungal decay of plywood and OSB in a lab test

IRG/WP 22-20683

L De Ligne, T Núñez Guitar, C Vanhove, J Van Acker, J Van den Bulcke

Bio-based building materials, such as wood and wood-engineered products, are susceptible to degradation by decay fungi. In-depth knowledge on the intricate material-fungus relationship as well as performance data for many bio-based building materials are still lacking, and especially knowledge on how a material’s structure and moisture properties affect the degradation process is missing. Although durability data is available for solid wood, the standard tests, mainly measuring the mass loss caused by decay fungi after sixteen weeks, do not offer much information on what is going on inside the wood during degradation. Notwithstanding that standard tests are excellent for testing the durability of a certain wood species or the efficacy of a preservation product, we need to gain more insight. X-ray CT has been shown to be a useful, non-invasive technique to obtain spatial data inside wood during degradation. When drying the wood specimens before and after the decay experiment, local density decrease due to fungal decay can be assessed easily. However, during the decay experiment, mass loss due to degradation by the fungus (density decrease) is masked by moisture production by the fungus (density increase). In this paper, we explore the use of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), complementary to X-ray CT. With MRI, we aim to quantify the moisture inside the wood block and use this to unravel the density as assessed with X-ray CT.


Keywords: fungal degradation, moisture production, MRI, X-ray CT, Coniophora puteana, OSB, plywood

Conference: 22-05-29/06-02 Bled, Slovenia


Download document (776 kb)
free for the members of IRG. Available if purchased.

Purchase this document