QUANTIFICATION OF BIODEGRADATION IN WOOD AT INACCESSIBLE LOCATIONS

THE PROPOSAL ADDRESSES A CRITICAL NEED WHICH EXISTS THROUGHOUT THE WORLD TO RELIABLY QUANTIFY THE DEGREE OF BIODEGRADATION IN WOOD STRUCTURAL COMPONENTS. THE PHASE I RESEARCH WILL FOCUS ON THE USE OF VIBRATION-BASED NONDESTRUCTIVE EVALUATION (NDE) TECHNIQUE UTILIZING SPECTRALANALYSIS AND MULTIPLE-VARIABLE REGRESSION MODELING METHODS. THE EFFECTS OF MAJOR VARIABLES WILL BE EVALUATED AND THE EXCITATION FREQUENCY AND ITS METHOD OF DELIVERY WILL BE CHOSEN TO MINIMIZE THE EFFECTS OF INTEFERING FACTORS SUCH ASMOISTURE, GEOMETRY AND BOUNDARY VARIABLES. SIMILARLY, THE NDE VARIABLES CHOSEN FOR THE PILOT MODEL WILL UTILIZE ONLY THOSE VARIABLES WHICH ARE LEAST AFFECTED BY THE INFLUENCING VARIABLES, EXCEPT THE BIODEGRADATION ITSELF. A VERIFICATIONOF THE PILOT MATHEMATICAL MODEL WILL BE PERFORMED TO ENABLE THE DEFINITION OF SPECIFIC RESEARCH NEEDS FOR THE PHASE II AND PHASE III STEPS.