摘要
Due to the availability and particular features, wood was one of the first materials used by mankind with a wide variety of applications. It can be used as raw-material for paper and cellulose manufacturing; in industries such as chemical, naval, furniture, sports goods, toys, and musical instruments; in building construction and in the distribution of electric energy. Wood has been widely researched; therefore, wood researchers know that several aspects such as temperature, latitude, longitude, altitude, sunlight, soil, and rainfall index interfere as to the growth of trees. This behavior explains why the average of physical chemical properties is important in wood study.Most of the researchers consider density to be the most important wood property because of its straight relationship with the physical and mechanical properties in wood. There are three types of wood density： basic, apparent and green. The apparent density was used here at 12% of moisture content. In this study, four different types of wood were used： ＂Freijo＂, ＂Jequitiba＂, ＂Muiracatiara＂ and ＂Ipe＂. For wood density determination by non-conventional method, ^241Am, ^133Ba and ^137Cs gamma-ray sources, a NaI scintillation detector and a counter were used. The results demonstrated that this technique is quick and accurate. Considering the nuclear parameters obtained as half-value layers and linear absorption coefficients,^ 137Cs demonstrated to be the best option to be used for inspection of the physical integrity of electric wooden poles and live trees for future works.
