Imperial College London
Alternate

DrHenryBurridge

Faculty of Engineering, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Senior Lecturer
 
 
 
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Contact

 

+44 (0)20 7594 5201h.burridge Website

 
 
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Assistant

 

Miss Rebecca Naessens +44 (0)20 7594 5990

 
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Location

 

328ASkempton BuildingSouth Kensington Campus

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Summary

 

Publications

Citation

BibTex format

@article{Burridge:2019:10.1038/s41598-019-55811-6,
author = {Burridge, H and Wu, G and Reynolds, T and Shah, DU and Johnston, R and Scherman, OA and Ramage, MH and Linden, PF},
doi = {10.1038/s41598-019-55811-6},
journal = {Scientific Reports},
pages = {1--14},
title = {The transport of liquids in softwood: timber as a model porous medium},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-55811-6},
volume = {9},
year = {2019}
}
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RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - JOUR
AB  - Timber is the only widely used construction material we can grow.  The wood from which it comeshas evolved to provide structural support for the tree and to act as a conduit for fluid flow.  Theseflow paths are crucial for engineers to exploit the full potential of timber, by allowing impregnationwith liquids that modify the properties or resilience of this natural material.  Accurately predictingthe transport of these liquids enables more efficient industrial timber treatment processes to be de-veloped, thereby extending the scope to use this sustainable construction material; moreover, it isof fundamental scientific value — as a fluid flow within a natural porous medium.  Both structuraland  transport  properties  of  wood  depend  on  its  micro-structure  but,  while  a  substantial  body  ofresearch relates the structural performance of wood to its detailed architecture, no such knowledgeexists  for  the  transport  properties.   We  present  a  model,  based  on  increasingly  refined  geometricparameters, that accurately predicts the time-dependent ingress of liquids within softwood timber,thereby addressing this long-standing scientific challenge.  Moreover, we show that for the minimal-istic  parameterisation  the  model  predicts  ingress  with  a  square-root-of-time  behaviour.   However,experimental data show a potentially significant departure from this√tbehaviour — a departurewhich is successfully predicted by our more advanced parametrisation.  Our parameterisation of thetimber  microstructure  was  informed  by  computed  tomographic  measurements;  model  predictionswere validated by comparison with experimental data.  We show that accurate predictions requirestatistical  representation  of  the  variability  in  the  timber  pore  space.   The  collapse  of  our  dimen-sionless experimental data demonstrates clear potential for our results to be up-scaled to industrialtreatment processes.
AU  - Burridge,H
AU  - Wu,G
AU  - Reynolds,T
AU  - Shah,DU
AU  - Johnston,R
AU  - Scherman,OA
AU  - Ramage,MH
AU  - Linden,PF
DO  - 10.1038/s41598-019-55811-6
EP  - 14
PY  - 2019///
SN  - 2045-2322
SP  - 1
TI  - The transport of liquids in softwood: timber as a model porous medium
T2  - Scientific Reports
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-55811-6
UR  - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-55811-6
UR  - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/75387
VL  - 9
ER  -
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