Moisture sorption and movement in Parallam® and Timber Strand®

Abstract

The equilibrium moisture contents and moisture diffusion coefficients of two types of Timber Strand® and four types of Parallam® were experimentally determined in this study. The Hailwood-Horrobin sorption model was fitted to theM e and the regression parameters that define the sorption isotherm were found to vary with material type, sorption mode and ambient temperature. An optimization technique was implemented to obtain diffusion coefficients from the experimental data. The results showed that the diffusion values of LSL and PSL were strongly affected by temperature and sorption direction relative to flake or strand orientation. Moisture content also affected the diffusion values, but the trend depended on the moisturetransfer mechanism that was dominant in the material.