Detecting deterioration before substantial losses in material properties occur poses a major challenge to most wood users. While physical inspection techniques such as drilling or coring are useful, these methods can miss small pockets of damage and they lack the ability to detect early or incipient decay. The development of sonic test methodologies has created the potential for detecting changes in material properties at relatively early stages of attack, but these technologies have suffered from an inability to separate normal wood characteristics from changes associated with degradation. One aspect of these methods that might prove useful, however, is their ability to detect small voids such as those caused by termites or beetles. This ability would be especially useful for assessing termite infestations in large structures. There is little data on the ability of many commercial devices to quantify termite damage. We assessed the ability of one device, the PURL-1, to detect increasing levels of simulated insect voids in Douglas-fir pole sections. The device was capable of detecting damage when as little as 1% of the cross section was removed. While the device was less successful at precisely quantifying the cross sectional area loss, the results suggest that this device has promise for early detection of small voids.

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