How could you find the volume of wood using a displacement can?

Answer 1

The piece of wood will float (partially submerged) in water. Filling up a displacement can with water and letting the water drain at the sprout is the starting point. When the water stops draining, place a dry (empty) measuring cylinder to collect water coming out of the sprout from here on. Gently lower the wood block on the water. It floats. Gently push the block down until it is just submerged. The volume in the displacement can is the volume of the wood block. The tricky part is how to push the block down without agitating the water, making the reading inaccurate. One possibility is to have a box of known weights around. Carefully place standards on the block without the weights toppling over -- starting with a heavier standard and proceeding to lighter standards (available down to 1 mg). If the standard makes the block submerge below the top surface, start over. Some volume uncertainty will remain for one run. Repeating the exercise and averaging the data will lower the uncertainty.

If the piece of wood is irregular -- not a regular shape, we can try the following. find a weight that will let the block submerge completely in water with a string. Measure the volume of water displaced. Then do the weight and string without the piece of wood and measure the volume of water displaced. The difference in volume is the answer for the piece of wood. Again, repeating the experiment reduces the measurement error.