Cutting and Disintegration of Wood and Wood-Based Materials

Abstract

Due to its natural growth habit, wood usually needs to be cut up or shredded for material use. Only then it is possible to produce specially shaped components for wood products such as windows, doors, or furniture or to disintegrate wood for composite materials such as plywood, particleboard, or fiberboard. From this necessity results, an elementary meaning of cutting and disintegration processes on wood and wooden materials. Optimal process control requires knowledge of the mechanisms during these processes as well as the material and process-specific boundary conditions and conditions in order to meet the requirements of the target parameters of the cutting and disintegration process such as quality, quantity, energy requirements, tool wear, and dust and noise emissions. In this sense, the section first addresses relevant material and media aspects of the workpiece and the tool. Thereafter, the cutting process of wood is fundamentally analyzed. For the exact description of the special cutting and disintegration methods, kinematic and geometric characteristics are to be defined. These form the basis for the description of today’s used processes. Finally, basic process variables and the effect of various influencing factors on them are presented.