The physical characteristics of oil palm trunk and fast growing species veneer for composite-plywood

Abstract

Oil palm trunk waste and fast growing species has potential to be used as composite-plywood (comply) raw material. Oil palm trunk as core layer and fast growing species as face and back layers of comply. This research focusing on the raw material characteristics of comply made of fast growing species (sengon, afrika, acacia) and oil palm trunk waste. The aim of this research is to determine the physical properties of raw materials to be used as comply. The physical properties (moisture content, specific gravity and thickness variations) were determined based on British Standard (BS) 373:1957 and Japanese Agricultural Standard (JAS) SE 11:2003. The research results showed that bottom and middle parts of oil palm trunk have moisture content and specific gravity values of 47%, 33% and 0.4, 0.7 respectively. Whereas, values of moisture content and specific gravity fast growing species from bottom, middle and upper parts were 54%, 47%, 35% and 0.25, 0.22, 0.24, respectively for sengon wood, 148%, 120%, 66% and 0.39, 0.32, 0.37, respectively for afrika wood, 80%, 79%, 76% and 0.59, 0.57, 0.59, respectively for acacia wood. The moisture content of fast growing species veneer for sengon, afrika, acacia were 27.32%, 32.83%, and 27.67%, respectively. Thickness variation of fast growing species veneer for sengon, afrika, acacia from bottom, middle and upper parts were 2.00, 1.96, 1.95 mm, 2.25, 2.20, 1.95 mm and 2.11, 2.09, 2.09 mm. All the above physical properties were suitable for comply raw material.