Use of round wood of chestnut tree coppices: crack risk and effects of a hot oil bath treatment

Abstract

The chestnut tree (Castanea sativa Mill.) presents good mechanical properties, when valorised in the form of round wood in small diameter. On the other hand, it is very sensitive to cracking during drying. The topic of this study is to optimize a hot oil bath treatment known from previous studies to reduce surface checking. Here, we compare the state of cracks of two series of chestnut tree logs: one is directly dried to 12% moisture content (MC), the other one is treated for one hour using a 130 °C oil bath first, then dried to 12% MC. This first experiment led us to study the evolution of the temperature in the log during the treatment and to propose a chart to determine treatment time in a 130 °C bath. This chart has been successfully tested on a second series of logs.