Lumber Boards Research Articles

Study on the Temperature Distribution and Natural Frequency of a Circular Saw Blade during Three Types of Wood Sawing Processes

Abstract The stability of a circular saw blade during the cutting process affects the knife life and the material utilization rate. In this article, continuous sawing experiments were carried out on medium-density fiberboard, Pterocarpus soyauxii board, and reconstituted bamboo lumber board. The temperature distribution of the saw blade surface was measured. The natural frequency of the saw blade under thermal stress was analyzed by the finite element method. The results show that the material density is positively correlated with the edge temperature of the saw blade. Greater temperature differences within the saw blade lead to worsening dynamic stability. When cutting the reconstituted bamboo lumber board, the saw blade will suddenly lose stability, and the surface temperature will rise rapidly, which greatly shortens the life of the saw blade.

A cyclic (intermittent) drying schedule for Macassar ebony—the prevention of collapse deformation and the utilization of mechano-sorptive creep gradient

Ebony wood is often defective, showing severe cracks and deformations during manufacturing processes, and requires ample times for drying. The continuous drying has been proved to result in enormous collapses during the entire drying stage. In order to control the extent of collapses and further prevent these defects, a low temperature pre-freezing procedure was projected and followed by a cyclic drying program. This cyclic (intermittent) drying schedule was proposed based upon a so-called “mechano-sorptive creep gradient” (MSCG) strategy and elaborated by a “corresponding temperature differentia” (CTD) concept. The MSCG and CTD variables provided the theoretical explanation and the operational instruction to the cyclic drying test, respectively. The overall evolutions of collapse and transversal shrinkage of the ebony lumber boards were quantitatively investigated during the entire period of a cyclic drying process. Furthermore, the relationships between collapse and moisture content as well as cross section orientation were determined quantitatively. Under this specified pre-freezing plus cyclic drying method, the averaged collapse deformations were significantly decreased, with the maximum collapse variables accounting for 20 ∼ 30% of those under continuous cases, fully achieving the collapse controlling objective.

Producing structural grade hardwood lumber as a raw material for cross-laminated timber: Yield and economic analysis

The economic feasibility of producing structural-grade hardwood lumber (SGHL) that qualifies as a raw material for structurally rated cross-laminated timber (CLT) was examined. 126 yellow poplar logs from diameters 12 to 15 inches were selected and divided into test and control samples. A log yield study was then conducted of the yield and revenue generated when producing lumber graded with National Hardwood Lumber Association (NHLA) rules, SGHL rules, and a mix of both rules (NHLA and SGHL-graded lumber). Producing mix-grade lumber added approximately 27% more revenue than producing NHLA-grade lumber on average if sawmills adopt a cant sawing method. Mix-grade lumber production resulted in 32% of the total volume produced as SGHL and the remaining 68% as NHLA lumber. As a result, 2 Common and lower-grade lumber board footage was reduced to only 29% in test samples and remained converted into SGHL compared to more than 85% of 2 Common and lower-grade lumber boards for control samples. 95% of the SGHL produced as mixed-graded lumber with NHLA-grade lumber met the specifications required to produce structural CLT, and the remaining 5% can be utilized to produce non-structural grade CLTs if they meet the minimum requirement of the materials for CLT production.

Scale modeling of thermo-structural fire tests of wood members

Standard fire resistance testing is essential to qualifying wood-based materials to be approved for use in building assemblies. In a previous study, we developed a theoretically based, experimentally validated scaling methodology for reducing the size of the test article while maintaining the same thermal and structural response exhibited in the large-scale test. This paper is focused on demonstrating these scaling laws for wood with combined thermo-structural loading. Due to load capacity limits, dimensional lumber boards at ½-scale and ¼-scale were subjected to combined bending and thermal loading. Samples were placed in static three-point bending with the loading scaled to have structural similitude, while simultaneously, the bottom surface was exposed to a scaled fire exposure. Analytical modeling of wood pyrolysis demonstrated that, due to char kinetics as the heating rate is increased in the tests, equivalently less char is formed in the reduced-scale tests. Therefore, we developed a char timescale correction factor, calculated from both model predictions and measured charring rates, which modified the previous Fourier number time scaling laws. Scaling exposure time by our updated thermo-structural test scaling laws, the smaller ¼-scale test deflection results predict the behavior of the equivalent larger ½-scale tests by between 11.0% to 16.1%.

Effects of a Passive Back Support Exoskeleton when Lifting and Carrying Lumber Boards.

Passive back support exoskeletons, which support the human trunk using elements like springs and elastic bands, have demonstrated positive results in laboratory-based studies, but have seen significantly less field testing. As an intermediate step between generic lab evaluations and field tests, we conducted a single-session lab evaluation of the HeroWear Apex exoskeleton with mockup construction tasks: 20 adult men (without extensive construction experience) lifted, carried and raised lumber boards (265 cm length, up to 18 kg total load). The exoskeleton significantly reduced mean erector spinae electromyograms, with effect sizes (Cohen's d) ranging from -0.2 to -0.55 - corresponding to reductions of 5-25% relative to noexoskeleton electromyogram values. In asymmetric carrying tasks, the exoskeleton provided more assistance to the more heavily loaded erector spinae muscle. Additionally, in lifting tasks, the exoskeleton decreased trunk/hip flexion/extension range of motion and increased knee range of motion, indicating changes in lifting strategy. These results indicate potential exoskeleton benefits for lumber board carrying and will serve as the basis for further evaluations with workers in the field.Clinical Relevance- This study establishes that a passive back exoskeleton reduces erector spinae electromyograms by 525% when lifting and carrying lumber boards used in construction work.

Research Concerning the Bending Properties of Reconstituted Spruce Lumber Boards, Obtained by Edge-Cutting at 45° and Gluing

The best-possible valorization of each cut log is a priority. The aim of this research was to evaluate the potential of a solution for increasing the conversion efficiency of tapered logs, by edge-cutting the narrowest sideboards at 45° and joining them by gluing, in order to obtain usable lumber boards. The modality of obtaining the glued elements was described and the values of the density and bending properties (MOE and MOR) of these elements compared to solid wood elements taken from the same logs and the same position within each log was determined. The envisaged outcome was to determine if the bonded products are suited to be used as cores within laminated products for construction.

Nondestructive assessment of cross-laminated timber using non-contact transverse vibration and ultrasonic testing

Cross-laminated timber (CLT) is a new generation of engineered wood product developed initially in Europe and has been used in North America for various applications. CLT is composed of at least three layers of lumber boards stacked crosswise in orthogonally alternating orientation to the adjacent layers. CLT has been gaining popularity and increasing application areas in the construction industry, such as building systems, mats for construction and temporary road applications as well as temporary bridges. It is especially identified as the prevailing material in modular construction for the future building industry. However, CLT as a relatively new structural material has limited studies related to their durability and long-term performance. Moreover, nondestructive evaluation methods to understand their mechanical behavior after exposure to harsh environment are lacking. This paper contributes to the development of a rapid nondestructive evaluation method to assess the mechanical properties using transverse vibration method and ultrasonic testing. The free vibration response triggered by the impulse excitation is captured using contact accelerometer and non-contact laser Doppler vibrometer (LDV). The LDV measurement is proven to respond similar to conventional accelerometers but more convenient as a rapid assessment method. While the longitudinal wave speed is measured by ultrasonic testing (UT) in a through-transmission mode, the modulus of elasticity was calculated in terms of measured wave speed. By investigating the different structural states and dimensions of CLT samples, the laboratory and the manufacturing facility, the influences of aging on effective dynamic modulus of elasticity (MOE) and damping are shown. The numerical and experimental results indicate the increase in moisture content decreases the fundamental frequency. Therefore, moisture content should be measured in order to examine the coupled effects of moisture content and aging on the fundamental frequency. The damping ratio extracted using half-power bandwidth method is shown as an additional information related to the moisture content. The non-contact transverse vibration method and UT are shown as an efficient nondestructive evaluation method for assessing the CLT structural state right after the manufacturing as a quality assurance method or after their service in field as a diagnostic tool.

Influence of strand size, board density, and adhesive type on characteristics of oriented strand lumber boards manufactured from pine strands

The influence of selected technological aspects was studied relative to characteristics of oriented strand lumber (OSL) boards manufactured from pine strands. Six types of boards were prepared, differing in the strand fraction size, density (700 kg/m3 and 800 kg/m3), and adhesive used to glue the strands in the core layer. The adhesives compared were melamine-urea-formaldehyde (MUF) and polymeric diphenylmethane diisocyanate (pMDI). The results showed that the OSL boards had good physical and mechanical properties, even though pine strands of diverse characteristics, particularly in terms of their length and width, were used for their production. The influence of strand size was clear in the results of the bending and elongation tests. Both for the bending test and tensile strength in a direction parallel to the wood grain, the properties were on average 20% greater for boards made of larger strands compared to those made of smaller strands. However, the latter demonstrated greater internal bonding strength (IB). The weakness of OSL boards made from small strands was their low modulus of elasticity, particularly when the board density was simultaneously reduced.

Torque loading tests on the rolling shear strength of cross-laminated timber

In this study , torque loading tests on small shear blocks were performed to evaluate the rolling shear strength of cross-laminated timber (CLT). The CLT plates in the tests were manufactured with Mountain Pine Beetle-afflicted lumber boards and glued with polyurethane adhesive; two types of layups (five-layer and three-layer) with a clamping pressure 0.4 MPa were studied. The small block specimens were sampled from full-size CLT plates and the cross layers were processed to have an annular cross section. These specimens were tested under torque loading until brittle shear failure occurred in the middle cross layers. Based on the test results, the brittle shear failure in the specimens was evaluated by detailed finite element models to confirm the observed failure mode was rolling shear. Furthermore, a Monte Carlo simulation procedure was performed to investigate the occurrence probability of different shear failure modes in the tests considering the randomness of the rolling shear strength and longitudinal shear strength properties in the wood material. The result also suggested the probability of rolling shear failure is very high, which gives more confident proof that the specimens failed dominantly in rolling shear. It was also found that the torque loading test method yielded different rolling shear strength values compared to the previous research from short-span beam bending tests; such a difference may mainly be due to the different stressed volumes of material under different testing methods, which can be further investigated using the size effect theory in the future.

General, physical and mechanical properties, termites resistance and drying defects of lumber of Tectona grandis from plantations of different climatic and sites fertility condition

The influence of climatic and site fertility conditions affect wood quality from fast growing trees. The change in tree diameter, thickness of sapwood, heartwood percentage and bark and pith tissue, physical and mechanical properties, resistance to termite attack and the presence of drying defects on lumber boards were evaluated. Four teak trees (Tectona grandis L.f.) from fast growing plantations in Costa Rica were selected for the study. Teak trees of 11 years old growing in two climatic conditions and two fertility types (high and low fertility) in Costa Rica were studied. The results showed that tree diameter, sapwood thickness, pith diameter and its percentage were higher in the climate with more rainfall and greater fertility. However, the percentage of heartwood and bark were higher at low fertility sites with less rainfall. It was also observed that only sites with low fertility produce modifications in specify gravity, fiber saturation point, initial moisture content, MOR in flexion in green and dry condition, MOE in bending and resistance to termite attack. Incidence and magnitude of defects increased with drying, and were mainly affected when wood comes from younger trees from high fertility sites and growing in tropical moist forest climate.

Effect of Air Drying, Solar-Assisted Air Drying and Sticker Thickness on Mahogany (Khaya senegalensis) Wood

This study was conducted at Elfaid Um Abdalla saw-mill in Southern Kordofan State to improve Mahogany timber quality by improving air drying process. 6.25 cm thickness lumber boards of 210 cm length were prepared and stacked using three thicknesses of stickers (2.5, 3.75, 5 cm) and replicated three times for each sticker under shade and under direct sun light. This was done to determine the effect of stickers and shading on drying rate and magnitude of defects that occurred during the drying process. Moisture loss was recorded every two days by weighting sample boards inserted in the center side of each stack. Data analysis was done using JMP statistical package. The study showed that there was no effect of the three kinds of stickers and shading on moisture loss during the drying process, while there was effect of shading and stickers on number of defects that are caused with the drying process. The study recommends using 2.5 cm sticker thickness and shading to decrease defects that are caused by drying.

Termite resistance of biobased composition boards made from cotton byproducts and guayule bagasse

Large quantities of cotton gin byproducts (CGB), also known as cotton gin trash or cotton gin waste, are being produced across the cotton belt of the United States annually. Similarly, guayule wastes after rubber latex production is expected to increase as this industry begins to expand. Use of these waste materials in value-added products can help the economics of the crops and aid in alleviating waste management issues and environmental problems. Conventional wood preservatives used to protect wood from insect and microbial damage are of concern to human health and the environment. Guayule bagasse (GB) has been shown to have termite control properties, and a combination of cotton gin and guayule wastes could also have such valuable properties. An initial study evaluating the physical and mechanical properties of boards produced from these two biomasses was published in 2009, this study is a continuation focusing on the termite resistance of boards produced. Thus, the objective of this research was to determine the termite resistance property of experimental composition boards made from CGB and GB. Composition boards were made from five different ratios of CGB to GB: 100:0, 75:25, 50:50, 25:75 and 0:100 (C100, C75–G25, C50–G50, C25–G75, and G100, respectively). Additionally, three-layered boards (3-layer) consisting of 25% GB (upper layer), 50% CGB (middle layer), and 25% GB (bottom layer) were made. For comparison, a commercial southern pine lumber board (SPB), a commercial oriented strandboard (OSB), and a commercial preservative treated medium density fiberboard (MDF) were included in the testing. This testing was an extension of a previous study where the mechanical properties of the CGB and GB composition boards were compared to select commercial standards. Five specimens were cut from each of the nine different board treatments and tested using Eastern subterranean termites. Weight loss, termite survival days, and visual grade of each specimen were determined according to testing standards. Results confirmed good termite control quality for boards made from GB alone. Boards containing CGB to GB ratios of 75–25 and 50–50 obtained similar termite resistance as the commercial OSB based on the total weight loss and one-week termite mortality rate. Visual grading of tested specimens revealed all six CGB and GB composition boards and the treated MDF showed better rating than the commercial OSB and pine lumber. No differences were noted among the total termite surviving days for the six CGB and GB composition boards. Overall, the biobased CGB and GB boards showed promise with the boards containing GB exhibiting improved termite resistance properties than SPB and OSB.

Wood defect classification based on image analysis and support vector machines

This paper addresses the issue of automatic wood defect classification. A tree-structure support vector machine (SVM) is proposed to classify four types of wood knots by using images captured from lumber boards. Simple and effective features are proposed and extracted by partitioning the knot images into three distinct areas, followed by utilizing a novel order statistic filter to yield an average pseudo color feature in each area. Excellent results have been obtained for the proposed SVM classifier that is trained by 800 wood knot images. Performance evaluation has shown that the proposed SVM classifier resulted in an average classification rate of 96.5% and false alarm rate of 2.25% over 400 test knot images. Future work will include more extensive tests on large data set and the extension of knot types.

Lumber surface profiling independent of bulk motion

A novel method is described to measure surface height profiles of lumber boards while they travel along a conveyor in a sawmill. Both surfaces of the board are identified independently, even on non-ideal conveyors where there are lateral motions relative to the sensors. Separate surface measurements are very useful for product quality control because each side of a piece of lumber is typically cut by a different tool. Therefore, such measurements open important new opportunities for machine fault diagnosis. The surface height profile measurement method uses multiple sequential sensors and a mathematical method based on linear inverse theory to separate surface profile information from lateral motions. The method was implemented using industrial-style laser sensors, and was effective both in the laboratory and in tests on the cant line of a large sawmill cutting dimension lumber.

Softwood Lumber Grading through On-line Multivariate Image Analysis Techniques

The concepts behind the use of multivariate image analysis (MIA) techniques for on-line monitoring of subtle features in time varying images were presented in an earlier paper (Bharati, M. H.; Macgregor, J. F. Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 1998, 37, 4715). This paper illustrates the successful application of these ideas to an industrial process from the forest products industry. MIA is used to rapidly detect the presence and quantity of common lumber defects such as knots, splits, wane, pitch, and bark pockets in individual sawn lumber boards as they pass on a moving conveyor belt under a line-scan RGB camera. Multiway principal component analysis is used to decompose the acquired three-channel lumber images into a two-dimensional principal component (PC) space. Masking score point clusters in the score space and highlighting corresponding pixels in the image space of the two dominant PCs enables isolation of lumber defect pixels based on contrast and color information. Control charts with appropriate tolerance limits are set up to monitor counts of defective pixels lying under any defect mask in the MIA score plots for each new lumber sample as it passes through the imaging system. Those lumber samples violating the tolerance limits are automatically downgraded. This application of on-line MIA for assessing specific quality problems is not limited to lumber grading, but could be directly applied to many industrial processes involving the production of solid or heterogeneous liquid or liquid/solid products.

Wood inspection with non-supervised clustering

The appearance of sawn timber has huge natural variations that the human inspector easily compensates for mentally when determining the types of defects and the grade of each board. However, for automatic wood inspection systems these variations are a major source for complication. This makes it difficult to use textbook methodologies for visual inspection. These methodologies generally aim at systems that are trained in a supervised manner with samples of defects and good material, but selecting and labeling the samples is an error-prone process that limits the accuracy that can be achieved. We present a non-supervised clustering-based approach for detecting and recognizing defects in lumber boards. A key idea is to employ a self-organizing map (SOM) for discriminating between sound wood and defects. Human involvement needed for training is minimal. The approach has been tested with color images of lumber boards, and the achieved false detection and error escape rates are low. The approach also provides a self-intuitive visual user interface.

FAST AND SLOW GENERATION OF A MULTILEVEL CONTROL FOR THE WOOD DRYING PROCESS

ABSTRACT The dynamic characteristics of the wood drying process were represented by an actuator network and an internal model. These two subsystems are composed of a set of ordinary differential, partial differential and algebraic equations with adjusting operating functions. The formulation of the operating functions is based on interaction between air and the lumber board in a semi-industrial drying kiln. Using this internal model, it was possible to establish a state observer, a state predictor, and a reference model for which the boundary conditions were generated by the actuator network. Simulation results were obtained with a C++ software package. In order to implement the optimization techniques to the wood drying process, the two-level control structure was proposed and tested for a minimum drying time as a performance criterion. Numerical results confirm that the internal model and its operating functions were properly chosen.

MODELING SIMULATION AND CONTROL OF THE WOOD DRYING PROCESS Part 1. A Set of PDE's as an Internal Model

The internal model proposed is a nonlinear system of a few partial differential equations. The boundary conditions for the differential equations are specified at the lumber board entrance and between the wood and air. The initial conditions are calibrated by solving the static model and by the technical experiment. In conclusion, it can be said that the consistency of the model with experimental results seems to be reasonably good and can be used for process simulation and control

Pinewood nematode,Bursaphelenchus xylophilusin commercial sawn wood and its control by kiln‐heating

In commercial sawn wood (green lumber) (50 × 150 mm) the pinewood nematode, Bursaphelenchus xylophilus (PWN) was found more frequently and in greater numbers in bluestained sections of lumber boards. The nematode population was dominated by third dispersal juvenile stage (J111). At 70°C a sawmill kiln was more effective in eradicating PWN from infested boards as compared to a laboratory heating oven. In pieces of boards (50 × 150 × 45 mm) all nematodes were killed in 30 minutes in the sawmill kiln, whereas in the laboratory oven, even after 9 hours, living nematodes were present. In 60 cm boards all the nematodes were killed in 2 hours in the sawmill kiln. The results suggest kiln‐heating to be a very effective means of control of PWN in lumber, high temperature being the main contributor to the death of the nematodes. A high frequency of J111 of PWN in lumber appeared to be of no importance for this efficiency.