On Mon, 30 Sep 2013 22:07:46 -0400, woodchucker wrote:

There is also a scanning moisture meter these days. What you neglect to
consider is that the moisture in the wood is not just pure water.
Trees have some sugar to them. Some more than others. Resin.


Now don't fret, many of us rely on the moisture content... some don't.
Take care Theo

Greetings, all. I was in the "lurking" phase before joining this group
because I am retired now and have vague ideas about finishing my basement.
I intended to wait a few weeks before exposing myself here, to learn the
vocabulary and group norms. (& outspoken personalities, etc.)

But I just could not resist the idea that came into my head about using
magnetic resonance imaging to measure water content in wood. Of course, not
very many people have a few million dollars to spare, a workshop with a few
hundred cubic meters of spare space, and a few kilowatts of spare fusebox
capacity.

Then it struck me like a cartoon "light bulb" balloon. You don't need to do
MRI! You can do molecular microwave resonance measurements using a
microwave oven, which is already tuned for the water molecule.

All you need to do is put a fixed quantity of water at a known temperature
(i.e. exacly 100 ml of water at exactly 0 C) along with your piece of wood.

Then you fire up the oven for a fixed time, (i.e. exacly 100 seconds) and
measure the resultant temperature of the water. If you know the effective
power of your magnetron[1], you should be able to easily calculate the
fraction of the total water content in the oven as it is divided between
your wood piece and the container with the liquid water.

If you are worried about damaging the wood, just use a smaller time period.
The result will be less accurate of course.

[1] You can calculate it just by seeing how long it takes to boil the water
when there is no wood in the oven.

--
http://pages.videotron.com/duffym/index.htm