Abstract

Lack of adequate information of property traits of wood species can inhibit their regular usage; hence rendering them lesser used. Studying properties of lesser used wood species such as Albizia adianthifolia will help to provide adequate information on its potential usage. This paper aimed at investigating the axial and radial variation of acoustic properties of Albizia adianthifolia wood with a view of finding possible significant variation to assist in determining its optimal uses for acoustic purposes. Three trees of A. adianthifolia wood were felled and 5 wood samples of 20×20×300 〖mm〗^3 each were collected axially and radially. The samples were oven dried at 103±2oC for 24 h after which they were stored at ambient temperature of 250C and 60% relative humidity for one month prior to acoustic measurements. Selected wood acoustic properties were measured using the longitudinal free vibration acoustic test method. The mean fundamental frequency (FF)(Hz), resonant frequency (RF)(Hz), Velocity of sound (V)(m/s), dynamic elastic modulus (E)(GPa), specific dynamic elastic modulus (Es)(GPa), sound quality (Q), internal friction (tan δ), radiation ratio (K), acoustic conversion efficiency (ACE) (m4kg-1s-1), impedance (Z) (x106)(kgm-2s-1), specific gravity (γ) 807.94, 2051.20, 3542.66, 7.92, 12.65, 126.01, 0.009, 5.76, 731.75, 2.21, 0.62. FF, V, E and Z only had significant interaction between axial and radial positions. Axially, base and middle wood performed better while core and middle wood were better radially owing to their mean acoustic properties measured. Conclusively, values obtained in this study did not compare favourably with other selected wood species, and as such was not considered suitable for making soundboards but frame boards.