How Do You Heat Wood When Investigating The Effect Of Temperature On The Expansion And Contraction Of Wood?
Don’t forget that humidity changes even in the absence of temperature changes can also cause the wood to expand and contract. It therefore makes a difference whether you use dry heat or a steam bath to heat the wood. You also need to contend with the wood’s anisotropy: its properties measured across the grain will vary quite a bit from those measured along the grain. If you use a strain gauge to measure the properties of your wood, you don’t necessarily have to use a Wheatstone bridge but you will need to take precise resistance measurements. You will also have to worry about the tendency of wooden planks to bow, twist, or cup from unequal expansion and contraction. These effects will also affect your strain gauge measurements. You might consider a nonelectrical way to measure your wood sample’s expansion and contraction instead. I would suggest mounting a dowel of suitable length and thickness, say a foot or two long and about 1/4 to 1/2 inch in diameter, to a metal plate with a short
