ABSTRACT: The study investigated the effect of thickness on the thermal properties of three different bulk wood products of celtis family: celtis zenkeri, celtis philipensis and celtis mildreadii. Using the modified double lee's disc apparatus incorporated with automatic data logger. The thermal conductivity of the samples obtained increase as the thickness increases. The result shows that celtis phillipensis records the highest thermal conductivity values of 0.3968Wm-1K-`1. The values of the thermal conductivity and thickness obtained for the samples fall within the range of (0.3337 – 0.3968) Wm-1K-1 and (6.79 -6.88) mm respectively. This range fall within the thermal conductivity values of common insulator material used in solar collector. The particle sizes for the specific wood samples exhibit low thermal conductivity could be comparable with materials used as industrial insulators. Hence, the selected wood materials could be useful for applications in industrial insulating devices, if properly harnessed into particle sizes.
Key words: Thermal conductivity, wood materials, solar devices and automatic data logger.
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