Study on the specific heat of wood by statistical mechanics

From the microstructure of wood, theoretical expressions of the wood specific heat were derived by statistical mechanics. With the theoretical expressions derived, the theoretical values of specific heat for 33 tree species, with different moisture contents and under varied temperature conditions were calculated and comparison was also made to the experimental values under the same conditions. The results showed that the maximum error and mean error by the theoretical expressions of this paper are only 7.8% and 2.5% respectively, while those error of the theoretical values for 33 tree species calculated with Dunlap’s empiric equation were 15.2% (max.) and 9.3% (mean), and for КИрИЛЛОВ empiric equation, they were 20% (max.) and 11% (mean). Foundation item: This study is supported financially by Natural Science Foundation of Fujian Province.