Reversible and irreversible effects of mild thermal treatment on the properties of wood used for making musical instruments: comparing mulberry to spruce

doi:10.3832/ifor4074-015

Reversible and irreversible effects of mild thermal treatment on the properties of wood used for making musical instruments: comparing mulberry to spruce

Elham Karami^(1-2) , Iris Brémaud⁽¹⁾, Sandrine Bardet⁽¹⁾, Tancrède Almeras⁽¹⁾, Daniel Guibal⁽³⁾, Patrick Langbour⁽³⁾, Kambiz Pourtahmasi⁽⁴⁾, Joseph Gril^(5-6)

iForest - Biogeosciences and Forestry, Volume 15, Issue 4, Pages 256-264 (2022)
doi: https://doi.org/10.3832/ifor4074-015
Published: Jul 20, 2022 - Copyright © 2022 SISEF

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Thermal treatments can be considered as an accelerated ageing, bringing partly similar changes in properties as naturally aged wood. Thermal treatment was applied on white mulberry (Morus alba L.), a dominant species for making musical instruments from middle-East to Far-East, to investigate the effects on the vibro-mechanical and physical properties of this wood, and the results compared to previously published data on spruce (Picea abies Karst.) as a reference for the soundboard of Western string instruments. Thermal treatment (TT) at 150 °C and 0% of relative humidity was applied to five analogous groups of specimens with five different durations (2.5, 8, 24, 72, 261 hours). Humidity re-conditioning of specimens was done to explore the reversibility of TT effects. Physical and vibrational properties such as specific gravity (γ), equilibrium moisture content (EMC), CIELab colorimetric values, specific modulus of elasticity (E’/γ) and damping coefficient (tanδ) in longitudinal (L) and radial (R) directions, have been measured after stabilisation of samples in standard conditions (20 °C, 65% RH), before and after TT and then after re-conditioning. Untreated mulberry had a low EMC, very low L/R anisotropy and low E’_L/γ, and relatively low tanδ. Weight loss (WL) and CIELab values evolved similarly during TT for mulberry and for previous results on spruce, however, their EMC and vibrational properties were affected differently. This could be explained in part by the low anisotropy of mulberry, and in part by its particular extractives. The parts of irreversible effects, linked to chemical modification or degradation, and of reversible effects, linked to physical configuration, were different between mulberry and spruce. The applied treatments did not bring permanent “improvements” in vibrational properties of mulberry, yet its colour appearance was enhanced.

Keywords

Anisotropy, CIELab, Morus alba, Musical Instruments, Reconditioning, Thermal Treatment, Vibrational Properties

Authors’ address

(1)

0000-0003-2942-3333
0000-0001-7999-6661
0000-0003-2156-6014

Wood Team, LMGC, CNRS, Univ. Montpellier, Montpellier (France)

(2)

0000-0003-2942-3333
Department of Wood Processing and Biomaterials, University CULS, Prague (Czech Republic)

(3)

0000-0002-1149-6131
0000-0001-6037-255X
BioWooEB, CIRAD, Montpellier (France)

(4)

0000-0002-1858-7765
Department of Wood and Paper Science and Technology, Faculty of Natural Resources, University of Tehran, Karaj (Iran)

(5)

0000-0003-1483-0294
Université Clermont Auvergne, CNRS, Institut Pascal, Clermont-Ferrand (France)

(6)

0000-0003-1483-0294
Université Clermont Auvergne, INRAE, PIAF, Clermont-Ferrand (France)

Corresponding author

Elham Karami
karami@fld.czu.cz

Citation

Karami E, Brémaud I, Bardet S, Almeras T, Guibal D, Langbour P, Pourtahmasi K, Gril J (2022). Reversible and irreversible effects of mild thermal treatment on the properties of wood used for making musical instruments: comparing mulberry to spruce. iForest 15: 256-264. - doi: 10.3832/ifor4074-015

Academic Editor

Petar Antov

Paper history

Received: Feb 06, 2022
Accepted: May 16, 2022

First online: Jul 20, 2022
Publication Date: Aug 31, 2022
Publication Time: 2.17 months

Open Access

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.

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