Introduction: Throughout many parts of the world, forests exist in one form or another. And for the timber from these forests to be used, it must be processed by, for example, sawing into planks and dried. Studies have shown that profits for the forest owners increase from beneficial processing of these raw materials. An efficient use of this raw material is to process it into lightweight panels. Some general incentives for using lightweight constructions are: economical, technical and environmental. Some general weaknesses with sandwich constructions are more sensitive to impact and bumps, risk for delamination, harder to make fastenings, and more sensitive to the concentration of point loads. This work aims to increase the knowledge of properties and design of wood based lightweight panels used for interiors and furniture. The intention with this knowledge is that it can contribute to the development of lightweight panels. Material and method: A lightweight panel of cross glued sandwich type and a cross-glued multi-layered panel with densified face sheets have been used as an example to investigate and understand which parameters are crucial for a lightweight panel, made of wood. The lightweight panel of sandwich construction has been studied to consider the changes of shape brought about by moisture, as well as which mechanical properties this panel has, with a focus on creep deformation. Two methods for reducing the moisture-generated shape changes so as to increase the shape stability of the panel have also been studied. The methods are crossgluing and thermal treatment of the wood material. In the investigations of the panels, primarily quantitative methods in the form of empirical tests have been used. Some numerical simulations describing the moisture-generated shape changes and stresses that arise in the investigated lightweight panels were also made. Results and discussion: Cross-gluing of a multi-layered panel and also for the lightweight panel used in this study is a way to reduce the movement in the panel, generated by moisture. The drawbacks with this method are that stresses occur in the panels when the moisture change, and this can lead to a decrease in the shape stability of the panel. Thermal treatment can also be used to decrease the moisture-generated movement in wood, and in this way increase the shape stability of the product. In those cases where the empirical experiments were combined with numerical simulations, there was good agreement between the experimental and the numerical results. With the lightweight panels a weight reduction was achieved from 307 to 540 kg/m3 compared with a solid beech wood panel. The creep deformation of the lightweight panel was better or comparable for 6 of the 8 studied groups, compared to solid beech wood panel. The study also show that is possible to adapt the mechanical properties through its design of this lightweight panel.

The first part of this thesis deals with recognition of wood fingerprints extracted from timber surfaces. It presents different methods to track sawn wood products through an industrial process using cameras. The possibility of identifying individual wood products comes from the biological variation of trees, where the genetic code, environment, and breakdown process means that every board has a unique appearance. Wood fingerprint recognition experiences many of the same challenges as found in human biometrics applications.  The vision for the future is to be able to utilize existing imaging sensors in the production line to track individual products through a disordered and diverging product flow. The flow speed in wood industries is usually very high, 2-15 meters per second, with a high degree of automation. Wood fingerprints combined with automated inspection makes it possible to tailor subsequent processing steps for each product and can be used to deliver customized products. Wood tracking can also give the machine operators vital feedback on the process parameters.  The motivation for recognition comes from the need for the wood industry to keep track of products without using invasive methods, such as bar code stickers or painted labels. In the project Hol-i-Wood Patching Robot, an automatic scanner- and robot system was developed. In this project, there was a wish to keep track of the shuttering panels that were going to be repaired by the automatic robots.  In this thesis, three different strategies to recognize previously scanned sawn wood products are presented. The first approach uses feature detectors to find matching features between two images. This approach proved to be robust, even when subjected to moderate geometric- and radiometric image distortions. The recognition accuracy reached 100% when using high quality scans of Scots pine boards that had more than 20 knots.  The second approach uses local knot neighborhood geometry to find point matches between images. The recognition accuracy reached above 99% when matching simulated Scots pine panels with realistically added noise to the knot positions, given the assumption that 85% of the knots could be detected. The third approach uses template matching to match a small part of a board against a large set of full-length boards. Cropping and heavy downsampling was implemented in this study. The intensity normalized algorithms using cross-correlation (CC-N) and correlation coefficient (CCF-N) obtained the highest recognition accuracy and had very similar overall performance. For instance, the matching accuracy for the CCF-N method reached above 99% for query images of length 1 m when the pixel density was above 0.08 pixels/mm. The last part of this thesis deals with the detection of thin cracks on oak flooring lamellae using ultrasound-excited thermography and machine learning. Today, many people manually grade and detect defects on wooden lamellae in the parquet flooring industry. The last appended paper investigates the possibility to use ensemble methods random forests and boosting to automate the process. When friction occurs in thin cracks they become warm and thus visible for a thermographic camera. Several image processing techniques were used to suppress noise and enhance likely cracks in the images. The best ensemble methods reached an average classification accuracy of 0.8, which was very close to the authors own manual attempt at separating the images (0.83).

Denna avhandling behandlar den svenska trähusbranschens behov och möjligheter att erhålla trämaterial med egenskaper som uppfyller de krav som produktion och slutkund ställer. Ett gemensamt problem för den svenska trähusbranschen är de kvalitetsbrister hos det virke sombranschens företag köper för sin produktion, som kan resultera i merkostnader för branschen med 100 MSEK årligen. Trähusföretagen uttrycker en viss uppgivenhet över bemötandet från virkesleverantörerna. Virkesleverantörerna å sin sida menar att köparna av trämaterial inklusive företagen i trähusbranschen i ringa utsträckning genomför reklamationer. Avgörande för genomförda virkesaffärer är ofta priset – det blir affär med den som erbjuder lägst pris. Sammantaget innebär detta att det inte blir någon dialog mellan leverantör och köpare som utvecklar synsättet på trämaterialkvalitet. Avhandlingsarbetet har bland annat behandlat beredning av träråvaran till färdiga ämnen t.ex. studier vid tillverkning av kvistfria ämnen. Resultatet av arbetet visar på vikten av att genomföra utvärderingar av material och leverantörer. Resultatet visar vidare att kapkostnaden för färdiga träämnen inkl. spill är ca 1/3 av ämneskostnaden. Dock är kostnaden för trämaterialet låg i relation till totalkostnaden för det färdiga huset vilket innebär att ett högre pris för ett virke som fullt ut motsvarar kravspecifikationerna i liten utsträckning påverkar totalkostnaden för huset. Råd till trähusbranschen är att ställa krav på virkesråvaran, utvärdera material och leverantörer samt att trähusbranschen ska sikta mot att bli en modern tillverkningsindustri i likhet med de mest framgångsrika inom verkstadsindustrin. / This thesis investigates the needs and opportunities for the Swedish wood house industry to obtain wood material with properties meeting demands of both producers and final customers. A common problem within the Swedish wood house industries is the insufficient quality of the wood material that companies purchase for their production. These flaws in quality can render an additional annual cost for the industry of approximately 10 million Euros. Wood house companies express a certain resignation regarding communication with wood material suppliers. However, timber suppliers claim that they rather receive very few complaints regarding timber quality from wood house companies and other purchasers. For a timber supplier, being able to offer an acceptable price is often a determining factor, since most deals will go to the supplier offering the lowest price. This has led to a non-existent dialogue between suppliers and purchasers regarding how to approach the wood quality issue. This study has, among other things, studied the preparation of sawn wood into finished components, for instance, the production of knotfree boards. The results illustrate the importance of carrying out evaluations of raw material and suppliers. Furthermore, results show that the cutting cost for wood components, including waste is approximately 1/3 of the total cost for ready-made components. However, in relation to the total cost of the house the timber cost is low. This means that a higher price for wood that fully meets the target specifications, will have limited impact on the total cost for the house. The wood house industry is recommended to present firm demands for a high-quality material and to evaluate material and suppliers. In addition to this, the wood house industry should aim towards becoming a modern manufacturing industry, like those most successful manufacturing industries in other fields.

Timber with its natural appearance and glass with its transparency may be appealing material for architects and users of modern buildings. Glass is a brittle material, but it is about six times stiffer than timber. Combined appropriately, the materials could form different types of composite products, e.g. beams or shear walls, that can be included in the load-carrying structure of buildings. e knowledge on load- carrying timber/glass components is limited. e intention of this research has been to contribute to the knowledge required for the industry to be willing to produce timber/glass components for the market. The thesis includes experimental testing accompanied with complementary nite element simulations, which provide more details and information about the test results. Tests were performed on small-scale specimens with a bond area of 800 mm2 as well as on I-beam and shear wall prototypes. For the small-scale specimens tested in standard climate, three different adhesives were used for the bond line between timber and glass. ese specimens were tested in both tension and shear. In addition, one of the adhesives was used for small-scale shear specimens which were exposed to different humidity levels before the tests were performed. e 4 m long I-beam prototypes designed with a web of glass and wooden anges were tested in four- point bending. e shear wall prototypes were tested by applying either a vertical load, a horizontal load or a combination of these, all being applied in the plane of the shear wall. Of the three adhesives used in the small-scale testing, an acrylate adhesive had the largest strength, both in tension and in shear. e study on the effect of humidity was performed with this adhesive. is study indicates that the adhesive properties do not change dramatically in indoor climate. is adhesive was also used for twelve of the fourteen tested I-beams. e results from the beams show that a signi cant redundancy is obtained; the load at the nal failure was around 240 % of the load when the rst crack in the glass web appeared. e shear walls were glued using the acrylate adhesive and for a few cases a 2-component silicone based adhesive. e results from the shear wall tests showed the shear wall to behave in a much more brittle manner, without any noticeable redundancy.

I examensarbetet har två byggnadsstommar modellerats i finita elementmodelleringsprogrammet RFEM 6, en stomme i betong och en motsvarande stomme i massivt trä. Syftet har varit att ta fram modellernas totala mängd material för att använda som underlag för beräkning och jämförelse av klimatpåverkan. Beräkningen av klimatpåverkan för de modellerade byggnadsdelarna har gjorts enligt Boverkets metod för klimatdeklaration av byggnader.  Ett befintligt flerbostadshus med betongstomme användes som referensbyggnad och modelleringen har utförts med referensbyggnadens bygghandlingar som underlag. Den massiva trästommen har modellerats med samma lägenhetsplanlösning som betongstommen men med luftspalter mellan lägenhetsavskiljande väggar samt med en övergolvskonstruktion som ska dämpa ljudöverföring via bjälklaget. Grundsulor och grundpålar har modellerats och beräknats för båda stommarna.  Några slutsatser från arbetet:  • Trästommar bör designas som trästomme från start då spännvidder är en begränsande designfaktor.  • KL-trästommen i den här studien blir för samma planlösning 1,5 m bredare, 30 cm djupare och 1,85 m högre.  • KL-trästommen behövde extra stöd för bjälklaget för samma planlösning.  • Utnyttjandegraden för de valda grundpålarna till KL-trästommen är mycket låg.  • Majoriteten av pållasterna för KL-trästommen är mindre eller lika med 500kN.  • Samtliga pållaster för betongstommen är större eller lika med 500kN  • Klimatpåverkan för KL-trästommen jämfört med betongstommen i betongkvalitet C30/37är 45% lägre.  • För KL-trästommen står kompletterande material som övergolvskonstruktionen och brandgips för 42% av den totala klimatpåverkan.  • En byggnads livscykel bör analyseras från start vid klimatoptimering då driftskedet står för en mycket stor del av den totala klimatpåverkan

No description available.

No description available.

Kiln drying is the most energy-consuming operation in the industrial production of sawn timber and optimising the process is necessary to improve its efficiency. A key to achieving this is to speed up the drying, but this must not come at the cost of deteriorating the quality of the sawn timber. X-ray computed tomography (CT) can help in increasing the efficiency of the process, as it is a research tool that can be applied to study moisture transport in wood during drying. The moisture content (MC) can indeed be estimated at a sufficiently small spatial scale but many stages of image processing operations are required. This complexity has until now restricted the computation of MC distributions to only one cross-sectional plane of the sawn timber volume, consequently limiting the potential of the method. A milestone of this PhD study work, now at its halfway point and hereby presented as a licentiate thesis, has been to develop a method based on four-dimensional CT (4DCT) for estimating the MC in each volume-element (voxel) from a repetitively CT-scanned volume of sawn timber during a drying process. The development of this method is supposed to result in a strong tool for experimental studies into the further optimisation of the industrial drying process. An image-processing algorithm capable of efficiently estimating MC distributions from 4DCT data was successfully implemented and validated against experimental data. Further processing allows the determination of the moisture gradient (MG) as a time-dependent vector field. Initial studies carried in this doctoral project suggest that it is a relevant parameter for investigating the optimisation of the industrial drying process. The image-processing algorithm, coded in Python software, requires limited preprocessing or parameter tuning, resulting in significantly reduced computational time compared to previous algorithms. The method has been validated, and errors were quantified by performing linear regressions between the CT-estimated MC spatially averaged at a volume of 1 cm3 and gravimetric measurements performed at the same scale. The sources of error were identified as the image processing and the density measurement uncertainty of the CT scanner. The root mean square error of the CT method for a 1 cm3 volume is 3.8 percentage points in average. The method was used to investigate the impact of different drying schedules on the degree of checking of sawn timber. As the MG is one of the driving forces of moisture transport, thus controlling the drying rate, and it triggers cracking, it was the parameter chosen to be studied. The MG was calculated and its evolution was correlated with different drying schedules and regimes. The evolution of MG and checking in the experimental studies suggested that the models for creating kiln schedules in the industry are too conservative, i.e. the drying process can be accelerated without significantly lowering the sawn-timber quality due to cracking. The outcome of this research will lead to a better understanding of moisture transport and drying stresses in sawn timber which will improve drying simulations, providing a strong tool for the optimisation of the industrial drying processes, and ultimately benefitting the sawmilling industry.

Syftet med den här avhandlingen var att undersöka mekaniska egenskaper hos olika arter av lövträd, och koppla egenskaperna till cell- och cellväggsstrukturen i materialet. Arterna som omfattades av undersökningen var Europeisk asp (Populus tremula), hybridasp (Populus tremula x Populus tremuloides) och ek (Quercus robur). Arterna inom familjen Populus, inklusive den snabbväxande hybridaspen, har på senare tid kommit att användas inom ett stort antal projekt inom genforskningen. Det har i sin tur ökat behovet av noggrannare bestämning av mekaniska egenskaper hos dessa arter. Ek har sedan tusentals år tillbaka varit ett populärt konstruktionsmaterial; något som har resulterat i ett stort antal arkeologiska ekfynd. Konservering av dessa inkluderar ofta dimensionsstabilisering med hjälp av polyetylen-glykol (PEG); en kemikalie som man vet påverkar de mekaniska egenskaperna. I vilken utstäckning detta sker är däremot inte helt klarlagt. Studien på euoropeisk asp och hybridasp inkluderade utveckling av en ny metod för provning av små juvenila prov i grönt tillstånd. Töjningsmätningar gjordes med hjälp av digital speckelfotografering (DSP). Axiell dragstyvhet och draghållfasthet var av speciellt intresse. Sämre mekaniska egenskaper hos hybridaspen korrelerade med medelvärden på densitet, som var lägre för hybriden än för den Europeiska aspen. Ek undersöktes i svällt tillstånd, där svällningen inducerades med hjälp av PEG (molekylvikt 600). Axiell dragstyvhet och draghållfasthet samt radiell tryckstyvhet och ytspänning undersöktes. Töjningsmätningar i axiell riktning gjordes med hjälp av videoextensiometer, medan töjning i radiell riktning gjordes med hjälp av DSP. Övrig karakterisering av materialet inkluderade scanning electron microscopy (SEM), röntgenmikrotomografi och wide angle X-ray scattering (WAXS) för bestämning av mikrofibrillvinkel. Axiell dragstyvhet och draghållfasthet påverkades bara marginellt av PEG-behandlingen. WAXS-mätningarna visade att mikrofibrillvinkeln i materialet var mycket liten. Därigenom blir de mekaniska egenskaperna i axiell riktning till stor del beroende av mikrofibrillerna, vilket samtidigt minimerar den mjukningseffekt som PEG-impregneringen har på cellväggsmatrisen. De mekaniska egenskaperna i radiell kompression påverkades däremot starkt negativt av impregneringen. Detta antogs bero på den försvagande och uppmjukande effekt som PEG:en har på de radiellt orienterade märgstrålarna i veden. / The aim of this work was to investigate the mechanical properties of different hardwood species and relate the properties to the structure at the cellular and cell wall level. The species examined were European aspen (Populus tremula), hybrid aspen (Populus tremula x Populus tremuloides) and European oak (Quercus robur). The Populus species, including the fast-growing hybrid aspen, are used in a large number of projects using transgene technology, which also has raised the demand for a more extensive determination of mechanical properties of the species. Oak have been a popular construction material for thousands of years, esulting in a vast number of archaeological findings. Preservation of these often includes dimensional stabilization by polyethylene glycol (PEG), an impregnation agent which affects the mechanical properties. To which extent is not properly investigated, however. The study on European and hybrid aspen included development of a method for tensile testing of small, juvenile specimens in the green condition, where strain was measured using the digital speckle photography (DSP) technique. Mechanical performance of the species in terms of longitudinal tensile stiffness and strength were of special interest. Inferior mechanical properties of hybrid aspen corresponded well to mean values of density, which were lower for the hybrid aspen compared to European aspen. Oak was examined in the swollen state, where swelling was induced by PEG with molecular weight 600. Longitudinal tensile stiffness and strength as well as radial stiffness and yield strength in compression were compared. Longitudinal and radial strain was measured using video extensiometry and DSP, respectively. Additional characterization of the material included imaging from scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray microtomography and determination of microfibril angle using wide angle X-ray scattering (WAXS). Tensile stiffness and strength in the axial direction were only slightly affected by PEG-impregnation. WAXS measurements showed that microfibril angles were close to zero which implicates that cell wall properties are strongly dependent on the microfibrils, and only marginally influenced by the plasticization effects from PEG on the lignin/hemicellulose matrix. In the radial direction, on the other hand, mechanical performance was strongly decreased by PEG-impregnation. This was believed to originate from softening of rays. / QC 20101105

Thesis (PhD For) (Forest and Wood Science))--Stellenbosch University, 2012. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: See full text for abstract / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Sien volteks vir opsomming