Water migration in wood during imbibition assessed by X-ray imaging

In the wooden construction, structural elements are particularly exposed to external climatic conditions during the construction phase. To ensure their durability over their expected lifespan, the required drying time have to be known after a rain shower and before closing the timber structures. This question, involving coupled heat and mass transfer, can be investigated through numerical tools. The aim of this work is to provide experimental data through X-ray imaging to validate the prediction potential of computational models simulating transfer in porous media. Two complementary methods were developed to access the water migration in Norway spruce. The first one allowed to quantitatively measure spatial distribution of moisture content over time. It is based on a rigorous treatment of the X-ray beam attenuation. The second method, using a high-resolution 3D reconstruction, highlighted the role of wood rays on liquid migration within the porous network.