The purpose of the research described in this report was to investigate the relationship between ultrasound scans of green red oak lumber and the use of gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) to identify wetwood. Green Pennsylvania red oak lumber was ultrasound evaluated using a Perceptron test bed system. This inspection provided complete sampling of the ultrasound waveform so that both time and energy-based signal processing were completed. Samples were obtained from the lumber ends and evaluated using GC-MS for the presence of resorcinol, pyrogallol and gallic acid in methanol extracts which are indicative of wetwood.

A useful relationship was identified between the relative level of wetwood and the energy-based ultrasound parameter. The strongest relationship was evident for those samples having high or medium levels of wetwood as classified by GC-MS evaluation.