The Effects of Drying Method on the Wood Permeability, Wettability, Treatability, and Gluability of Southern Pine from Australia

Date

2021

Authors

Leggate, William
Kumar, Chandan
McGavin, Robert
Faircloth, Adam
knackstedt, mark

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

North Carolina University

Abstract

Drying has a major impact on the viability of sawn timber production, particularly through its influence on productivity, energy usage, and product quality. Traditionally, plantation-grown southern pine structural grade timber from Australia has been dried using high temperature (>= 180 degrees C) conventional batch kilns. However, the Australian industry is showing increasing interest in continuous drying kilns because of reported cost savings and potential improvements in product quality. This study investigated the differences between continuous drying and conventional drying schedules on the radial permeability, wettability, gluability, and treatability of southern pine timber from Queensland plantations. The high temperature drying resulted in significantly lower liquid permeability compared to low temperature drying; however, there were no significant differences between drying schedules for gas permeability. For combined wood surface and core data, there were no significant differences in liquid permeability between low temperature drying and continuous drying or between continuous drying and high temperature drying schedules. For earlywood after surface machining, continuous drying resulted in the greatest wettability (based on K-values), whereas for latewood after surface machining, low temperature drying produced the greatest wettability. Earlywood had greater wettability compared to latewood. Continuous drying resulted in better gluability and treatability compared to conventional drying schedules.

Description

Keywords

wood drying, Continuous dryting, Wood wettability, Wood permeability, Wood gluability, Wood treatability, Pinus elliottii, Pinus caribaea, Southern pine

Citation

Source

BioResources

Type

Journal article

Book Title

Entity type

Access Statement

License Rights

Restricted until

2099-12-31