Thermal properties of wood-gypsum boards

Transient simultaneous measurements of thermal conductivity, volume heat capacity and thermal diffusivity of laboratory wood-gypsum boards have been performed with ISOMET 2104 at room temperature. The influences of wood particle content, density and moisture content on thermal properties were investigated. The measurements were performed in a direction perpendicular to the board plane. The effect of density and wood particle content on the thermal properties may be related to the presence of voids both between and inside particles. It seems, that the dominant mechanism of heat transfer across the board is the heat conduction through the voids. Wood-gypsum boards with a density of 850–1300 kg/m³, a moisture content of 2–11% and a wood particle content of 0–35% have the following thermal conductivity of 0.189–0.753 W m^-1 K^-1, volume heat capacity of 0.683–1.43×10⁶ J m^-3 K^-1 and thermal diffusivity of 0.171–0.367×10^-6 m² s^-1; their magnitudes are higher than those ones of OSB, MDF, particleboard and plywood.