Propriedades físicas da madeira de Corymbia citriodora no sentido radial

This study aimed to evaluate the specific gravity and dimensional stability of Corymbia citriodora wood in the radial direction. To this end, we selected five mature trees, with age around 60 yr, and with girth greater than 50 cm of diameter at breast height (DBH). For preparation of the samples five disks were removed (one from each tree), at DBH. Samples were taken every cm. Thus, the dimensions and mass of the samples were measured at three times: above the fibers saturation point, conditioned at 12% of moisture content wood (conditions of 20°C and 65% RH) and oven dried at 103 ± 2°C of temperature. The results showed that the wood presented a specific gravity increasing from 14-20 cm, followed by stabilization; which characterizes juvenile wood near the pith and mature wood near the bark. The tangential dimensional variation proved decreasing from pith to bark, but when considering only the juvenile wood timber, the dimensional variation was initially increased and subsequently stable.