3.2.3 - Analisi densitometriche

Instrumented-drill is a recording resistance drill. Its drilling needle can bore the wood producing precise and reproducible profiles that correlate linearly with wood density and hence can be calibrated and clearly interpreted. This instrument is used to assess the strength to the penetration of the drilling needle in living trees or wooden structural elements. It can detect many defects which may affect mechanical properties such as wood decay insects galleries, cracks of different magnitude which occur in timber due to shrinkages. The instrument is also used to detect annual rings due to differences of the densities between earlywood and latewood. For this reason the instrumented drill can be used also for dendrochronological purposes when no other possibility to perform measure of rings width is available. The results shows how the ring shake in chestnut timbers of Santa Maria Nuova was detectable; same for the cracks due to shrinkages. In the investigated timbers there is no evident trouble of wood decay or insects, except in the external parts of the timbers.