Comparative Assessment of Selected Acoustic Methods Tested on Gmelina arborea (ROXB) Wood

Abstract

Wood is among the materials that produce sound, and its excellent sound characteristics has made it one of the suitable materials for acoustic purposes. Many methods have being devised to study the acoustic properties of wood by scholars. However, there has been different acoustic results from these methods and thus leading to conflict of findings. This disparity, if left unchecked can mar the implementation of the resulting acoustic findings. Therefore, there is a need to assess these acoustic methods for existence of significant difference. Three trees of G. arborea were fell, and wood samples of 20×20×300〖 mm〗^3collected axially and radially for acoustic testing using two different methods. Selected acoustic values were obtained from these methods and analysis of variance was done to test for a significant difference. From the analysis done, P-values for the acoustic properties from the two methods were 0.17, 0.27, 0.18, 0.29, and 0.38 for velocity of sound, longitudinal elastic modulus, specific longitudinal elastic modulus, acoustic co-efficient and Impedance respectively. These values revealed that there were no significant difference between the two acoustic methods tested for in this study, and as such the acoustic values obtained are the same. Hence, no conflict of findings.