A portable stress wave measurement system for timber inspection

This paper describes a portable system being developed for assessing the quality of the timber in a standing tree by measuring stress waves induced within the tree. The system generates acoustic signals using a piezoelectric ceramic transducer and measures the received signals at two points along the tree stem using additional transducers. The signals are correlated using a digital signal processor (DSP), displayed on a LCD, and saved in memory for downloading to a computer using a USB interface.