Experimental Characterization of the Influence of Water Content on the Density and Shrinkage of Tropical Woods Coming from Cameroon and Deduction of their Fiber Saturation Points

In this study, fiber saturation point (FSP), density and shrinkage of tropical woods come from Cameroon are characterized in function of water content. This study is based on obeche (triplochiton scleroxylon), frake (terminalia superba), lotofa (sterculia rhinopetala) and sapelle (entandrophragma cylindricum). It is most important to characterize wood in function of their origins and to integrate a contribution of sapwood and heartwood in the constitution of the plank. Many relationships are obtained with a good intensity regression. We have obtained relationship between shrinkage and basal density of studied wood which can be used to predict shrinkage of many others woods in the same rank of densities. Evolution of volumetric shrinkage with water content permits us to estimate FSP of each wood. Results obtained are a contribution to distinguish some particularity of Cameroonian woods. We observe a small difference between ours results and the results on the same woods present in the literature.