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Forests
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Wood Conversion, Engineered Wood Products and Performance Testing
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Wood Conversion, Engineered Wood Products and Performance Testing

A special issue of Forests (ISSN 1999-4907). This special issue belongs to the section "Wood Science and Forest Products".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (25 March 2023) | Viewed by 7884

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Chandan Kumar

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Agri-Science Queensland, Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, Salisbury Research Facility, 50 Evans Road (cnr Nettleton Cres), Salisbury, QLD 4107, Australia
Interests: mathematical model; optimisation; simulation; prediction; efficiency; improvement
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Robert L McGavin

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Agri-Science Queensland, Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, Salisbury Research Facility, 50 Evans Road (cnr Nettleton Cres), Salisbury, QLD 4107, Australia
Interests: forest quality; wood quality; sawmilling; veneer processing; timber seasoning; engineered wood products; product testing; wood utilisation

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Wood is gaining increasing attention as a natural, renewable, low embodied energy and sustainable building product. This is creating unprecedented demand for wood-based products for structural and architectural applications, in the form of traditional and new product designs. In order to meet this increasing market demand, innovative approaches to producing suitable products from the available forest resources will be necessary. There have been significant advancements in recent years in science, technology, and engineering to improve wood and wood-based products. Therefore, this Special Issue of Forests is focused on wood conversion (e.g., processing, seasoning, treatment, modification), engineered wood product design and manufacture, and product performance testing (e.g., structural properties, non-destructive testing, durability). We invite original research papers, comprehensive reviews, and short communications addressing the current challenges to advancing the efficient use of wood products in the modern built environment.

Dr. Chandan Kumar
Dr. Robert L McGavin
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Forests is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • wood drying/seasoning
  • wood processing
  • veneer processing
  • nondestructive testing of wood
  • engineered wood products
  • wood composite and adhesives
  • treatment and durability
  • mathematical modeling of transport process
  • product design
  • product performance

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

26 pages, 7718 KiB  
Article
Influence of Weathering on the Structural Performance of Sheathing-to-Timber Connections
by Craig J. L. Cowled, Tom P. Slattery, Keith Crews and Harrison Brooke
Forests 2023, 14(4), 734; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/f14040734 - 03 Apr 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1366
Abstract
The sheathing-to-timber connection (STC) is a critical component of timber-framed shear walls. The STC provides the shear wall system with its racking resistance, while anchors and tiedowns provide resistance to sliding and overturning, respectively. Because building materials are exposed to weathering during construction, [...] Read more.
The sheathing-to-timber connection (STC) is a critical component of timber-framed shear walls. The STC provides the shear wall system with its racking resistance, while anchors and tiedowns provide resistance to sliding and overturning, respectively. Because building materials are exposed to weathering during construction, this study aims to quantify the influence of weathering on the structural performance of STCs. To achieve this aim, a total of 117 small-scale specimens were fabricated with 5 different sheathing types and 2 different timber species. Each specimen comprised 2 panels of sheathing connected to 2 short lengths of pine timber (90×35 mm cross-section), with a total of 16/2.8ϕ×30 mm (l) galvanised clouts at 45 mm spacings. Some specimens were tested under the EN 594 monotonic loading protocol and others were tested under the ISO 16670 cyclic loading protocol. Some specimens were exposed to the weather for a period of 6 months before being tested, while others were stored in an air-conditioned environment before being tested. The results show that weathering reduces the ultimate and yield capacity of STC connections by 3% and 5% on average, respectively; however, this result is not statistically significant for most sheathing types. The results varied, with some configurations having an ultimate capacity up to 16% higher and others having an ultimate capacity as much as 20% lower for weathered specimens compared to unweathered specimens. However, weathering reduces the stiffness of STCs by 61% and ductility by 50%, a statistically significant result. For most sheathing types, these findings do not support reductions to the design capacity of STCs that have been exposed to weathering. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Wood Conversion, Engineered Wood Products and Performance Testing)
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22 pages, 7698 KiB  
Article
Investigating Factors Influencing Rolling Shear Performance of Australian CLT Feedstock
by Chandan Kumar, Adam Faircloth, Jon Shanks, Robert L. McGavin, Xin Li, Mahmud Ashraf and Mahbube Subhani
Forests 2023, 14(4), 711; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/f14040711 - 30 Mar 2023
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1265
Abstract
This paper presents an investigation on the influence of various factors on rolling shear (RS) properties of timber feedstock for cross laminated timber (CLT) available from Australian plantation forest resources. Comparison of RS properties between three softwood species namely southern pine, radiata pine [...] Read more.
This paper presents an investigation on the influence of various factors on rolling shear (RS) properties of timber feedstock for cross laminated timber (CLT) available from Australian plantation forest resources. Comparison of RS properties between three softwood species namely southern pine, radiata pine and hoop pine are presented. Furthermore, the effect of modulus of elasticity (MOE), equilibrium moisture content (EMC), aspect ratio, knots and projection length on rolling shear behaviour were investigated. Mean RS modulus for radiata pine, southern pine and hoop pine samples were 74.7 MPa, 87.1 MPa and 99.7 MPa, whilst the RS strength of those species were 2.6 MPa, 3.1 MPa and 3.7 MPa, respectively. Radiata pine samples exhibited the lowest values for RS modulus and strength, almost 30% less than those of hoop pine samples. The study confirmed that the density and MOE had a very weak correlation with RS properties for all pine species. There was an obvious decrease in RS modulus (by 18%) when the woods’ conditioned EMC changed from 8% to 12%. A further 33% decrease was observed when the woods’ conditioned EMC increased from 12% to 16%. However, the percentage increase in RS strength was found to be 23% higher in wood with 12% conditioned EMC while compared against wood conditioned to 16% EMC. RS strength improved with increased aspect ratio; however, RS modulus remained almost unaffected. Moreover, the projection length that resulted in the load passing through the centroid of the specimen resulted in lower RS modulus values, but the presence of knots improved both RS strength and modulus for all three tested species. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Wood Conversion, Engineered Wood Products and Performance Testing)
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12 pages, 2609 KiB  
Article
Size Effect on Hygroscopicity of Waterlogged Archaeological Wood by Simultaneous Dynamic Vapour Sorption
by Liuyang Han, Dehao Yu, Tiantian Liu, Xiangna Han, Guanglan Xi and Hong Guo
Forests 2023, 14(3), 519; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/f14030519 - 07 Mar 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1120
Abstract
Hygroscopicity is one of the most important properties of wood and plays a decisive role in its dimensional stability. In this context, conservation plans for waterlogged archaeological wood (WAW) and relevant waterlogged artefacts must be created. The size of the sample required for [...] Read more.
Hygroscopicity is one of the most important properties of wood and plays a decisive role in its dimensional stability. In this context, conservation plans for waterlogged archaeological wood (WAW) and relevant waterlogged artefacts must be created. The size of the sample required for a moisture sorption assessment may affect the results for (and thus the perception of) the hygroscopicity of a testing artefact. Herein, to investigate the effects of the sample size on the hygroscopicity of WAW as measured via dynamic vapour sorption (DVS), typical WAW and recent (i.e., sound) wood are processed into four differently sized samples, ranging in thickness from 200 mesh to millimetre. The equilibrium moisture contents (EMCs) of the wood samples are simultaneously measured using simultaneous DVS. The sorption isotherms show that the EMC values of the recent wood at each relative humidity increase as the sample size decreases, with the superfine powder sample achieving the highest EMC of all of the recent samples. Although the WAW has a higher EMC than that of recent wood, the effect of the size of the WAW sample on its hygroscopic properties is surprisingly not as pronounced as that for the recent wood. In addition, the hysteresis between the samples of different sizes of the archaeological wood is significantly smaller than that for the reference samples. Furthermore, regarding the standard deviations of the parameters obtained from the Guggenheim Anderson de Boer and Hailwood–Horrobin models, the values for WAW are all much smaller than those for the reference wood. This further verifies the disappearance of the size effect of the hygroscopicity for WAW. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Wood Conversion, Engineered Wood Products and Performance Testing)
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13 pages, 3363 KiB  
Article
Crack Detection Method for Engineered Bamboo Based on Super-Resolution Reconstruction and Generative Adversarial Network
by Haiyan Zhou, Ying Liu, Zheng Liu, Zilong Zhuang, Xu Wang and Binli Gou
Forests 2022, 13(11), 1896; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/f13111896 - 11 Nov 2022
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 1327
Abstract
Engineering bamboo is a type of cheap and good-quality, easy-to-process material, which is widely used in construction engineering, bridge engineering, water conservancy engineering and other fields; however, crack defects lead to reduced reliability of the engineered bamboo. Accurate identification of the crack tip [...] Read more.
Engineering bamboo is a type of cheap and good-quality, easy-to-process material, which is widely used in construction engineering, bridge engineering, water conservancy engineering and other fields; however, crack defects lead to reduced reliability of the engineered bamboo. Accurate identification of the crack tip position and crack propagation length can improve the reliability of the engineered bamboo. Digital image correlation technology and high-quality images have been used to measure the crack tip damage zone of engineered bamboo, but the improvement of image quality with more-advanced optical equipment is limited. In this paper, we studied an application based on deep learning providing a super-resolution reconstruction method in the field of engineered bamboo DIC technology. The attention-dense residual and generative adversarial network (ADRAGAN) model was trained using a comprehensive loss function, where network interpolation was used to balance the network parameters to suppress artifacts. Compared with the super resolution generative adversarial network (SRGAN),super resolution ResNet (SRResNet), and bicubic B-spline interpolation, the superiority of the ADRAGAN network in super-resolution reconstruction of engineered bamboo speckle images was verified through assessment of both objective evaluation indices (PSNR and SSIM) and a subjective evaluation index (MOS). Finally, the images generated by each algorithm were imported into the DIC analysis software, and the crack propagation length was calculated and compared. The obtained results indicate that the proposed ADRAGAN method can reconstruct engineered bamboo speckle images with high quality, obtaining a crack detection accuracy of 99.65%. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Wood Conversion, Engineered Wood Products and Performance Testing)
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32 pages, 9393 KiB  
Article
Mechanical Properties of Low-Stiffness Out-of-Grade Hybrid Pine—Effects of Knots, Resin and Pith
by Rebecca Cherry, Warna Karunasena and Allan Manalo
Forests 2022, 13(6), 927; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/f13060927 - 13 Jun 2022
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1750
Abstract
Out-of-grade pine timber is an abundant material resource that is underutilised because its mechanical properties are not well understood. Increasing trends toward shorter rotation times and fast-grown plantation pines around the world such as Pinus elliottii × P. caribaea var. hondurensis hybrid (PEE [...] Read more.
Out-of-grade pine timber is an abundant material resource that is underutilised because its mechanical properties are not well understood. Increasing trends toward shorter rotation times and fast-grown plantation pines around the world such as Pinus elliottii × P. caribaea var. hondurensis hybrid (PEE × PCH) mean low-stiffness corewood is becoming a larger portion of this out-of-grade population. This study characterised the modulus and strength properties in bending, compression parallel to grain (CParG) and compression perpendicular to grain (CPerpG), shear and tension strength of low-stiffness out-of-grade PEE × PCH. The effect of resin, knots and pith on these properties were also investigated. The results show that in clear wood, the MOE in bending, CParG, CPerpG and shear modulus are 6.9 GPa, 5.78 GPa, 0.27 GPa and 0.59 GPa, respectively, while strengths are 45.8 MPa, 29.4 MPa, 6.7 MPa, 5.7 MPa, respectively. The tensile strength is 32.4 MPa. Resin significantly increased density 45% higher than clear, but performed similar with the exception of CPerpG MOE and strength which were significantly different. Resin area ratio (RAR) has a moderate correlation with density with an R2 of 0.659 but low to no correlation for mechanical properties. Knots were significantly different to clear for all test types and within a range of 48% to 196%. Knots were high in CPerpG MOE and strength but lower for all other properties and had the largest negative impact on tensile strength. Knot area ratio (KAR) had low to moderate correlation with tension strength and CPerpG MOE with R2 of 0.48 and 0.35, respectively. Pith was within the range of 76% to 121% of non-pith samples for structural performance, some of which were significantly different, and pith samples were higher in density than non-pith. This new information is crucial for the effective establishment of grading rules, design optimisation and utilisation of low-stiffness out-of-grade PEE × PCH as a new material resource in civil engineering applications. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Wood Conversion, Engineered Wood Products and Performance Testing)
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