Abstract:

With the passage of time and the influence of the environment, all materials exhibit a loss in performance. Undesirable changes occur to the material which, at best, are restricted to its surface layers, but which usually permeate the whole of the material and have a most pronounced effect on its mechanical performance, especially in terms of strength and toughness. The rate of the degradation is usually specific to a particular material and to specific environmental conditions. Test methods of wood may be classified as destructive or nondestructive. Both destructive and nondestructive methods are used for wood in scientific research and industrial quality control. For cultural property, the determination of individual wood properties is of much less importance than the determination of the condition both before and after conservation and restoration treatments. In the case of monuments and museum objects, the primary objective is the diagnosis of biological deterioration by fungi, bacteria or insects. In archaeology, not only biological deterioration, for example by fungi, bacteria, but also abiotic deterioration, for example by hydrolytic, or cultural property, a common goal is to use methods which are as close as possible to being nondestructive in order to prevent further damage.The condition analysis of woods and lumber can be made by mechanical, electrical, optical, acoustic, thermographic, radiographic, nuclear magnetic, chemical, and biological methods or possibly a combination of several of these methods. Methods for the condition diagnosis of wood have been investigated in this paper

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