Abstract:

Similarity of some properties between thermal conductivity and electricity conductivity was analyzed in this paper.Analogism reasoning was applied to infer that thermal conductivity had some properties of electricity conductivity. Therefore, thermal conductivity could be defined by definition formula similar to that of electricity conductivity, which thermal conductivity was the reciprocal of heat resistance per unit length and per unit cross section area of wood. The theoretical formula of wood thermal conductivity in transverse direction was inferred by cylinder model based on the cell structure of the wood. With the formula derived, the theoretical values of thermal conductivity in transverse direction for 20 tree species were calculated and comparison was also made to the experimental values under the same conditions. The results showed that the theoretical values of thermal conductivity is fairly identical to their experimental values, which the maximum error is 14.1% and mean error is less than 7%. The conclusion provided a feasible method to study thermal properties of wood theoretically.

Key words: thermal conductivity, wood, analogism