Effects of Natural Weathering on A Wood Fiber/HDPE Composite and Application of Additives

In this study,the durability of rubber wood(Hevea brasiliensis) which was thermally treated at 170,185,200,and 215℃for 3 h respectively was investigated.The results showed that the durability of heat-treated rubber wood was improved,and the improvement became more obvious with the increase of the treating temperature. When treated at 185℃or lower temperature,the decay resistance of treated wood had no significant improvement.The lowest weight losses were 21.6%and 6.8%after attack by brown rot fungi(Gloeophyllum trabeum) and white rot fungi (Coriolus versicolor) respectively,which were reached by the specimens treated at 215℃.Their resistance to mold fungi was not improved,but the heat-treated wood performed better than untreated wood when both were painted.In field test,the heat-treated specimens exhibited no advantage in termite resistance compared to untreated.     

Analysis on Volatiles Release Behavior of Poplar Wood Powder at Different Temperature by TD-GC/MS and Environmental Protection Evaluation

The volatiles release behavior of poplar powder has been studied by TD-GC/MS online technique at different temperatures.The results show that the proportion of main harmful components was higher than that of beneficial in the volatiles of poplar powder at 40℃ and 90℃,the harmful components was 1.7 times higher than beneficial components. The proportions of main beneficial and harmful components were equivalent at 60℃,while the main beneficial components was 5.42 times higher than that of harmful.Taking poplar wood powder as substrate to prepare wood powder-based composites by high-pressure no-gel molding compaction between the temperature of lignin softening point and wood materials carbonization(about 150-180℃) can present a satisfactory environmental friendliness.     

The Fractal Nature of Wood Revealed by Drying

An experiment on wood drying at different temperatures was conducted to show the fractal nature of the pore space within wood. Cubic blocks made from ginkgo (Ginkgo biloba) and Chinese chestnut (Castanea mollissima) wood were used. Samples were dried in oven at the temperature of 20, 40, 60 and 100 ℃, respectively. All the drying procedures lasted four hours. The mass was weighed and the dimensions were measured immediately for each sample when every procedure of drying ended. The fractal dimensions of the samples were obtained from the measurement. Results showed that the fractal dimensions increased with the drying temperature from 20℃ to 60℃ and the fractal dimensions keep a constant in the main. Results from different species and for different temperatures suggested thefractal dimension was a new parameter to characterize the porosity of wood.     

Eucalypt Wood Anatomical and Physical Properties and Their Effects on Plywood Veneer Quality

In order to better understand the reasons why eucalypt veneer checks easily and severely, wood samples of three eucalypt species were selected, and their anatomical and physical properties were examined according to conventional methods and the national standards. The effects of variances in cell wall thickness of wood fibre and vessel, and diameter of the cell lumen as well as the tissue ratio on the quality of plywood veneer were analysed. The results show that： 1） There is a great difference in fibre cell wall thickness and diameter of the cell lumen between early wood and late wood of Eucalyptus delegatensis. 2） E. obliqua has a high wood fibre tissue ratio and the thickest fibre cell wall, but the difference inthe fibre cell wall thickness between early wood and late wood is the smallest. 3） The wood fibre tissue ratio of E. regnans is smaller than that of E. obliqua, and its wood fibre cell wall isthe thinnest and there is only a very small difference in fibre cell wall thickness between early wood and late wood. The difference inthe diameter of wood fibre cell lumen among early wood, transition area and late wood is also small： 4） E. delegatensis has the highest tangential shrinkage rate and radial-tangential shrinkage rate, andE. obliqua has the lowest. It is the variability of wood anatomical properties of these species that cause the difference in the veneer shrinkagei and then affects plywood veneer quality.     

PREDETERMINATION STEM WOOD QUALITY WITH THE BRANCH WOOD INDEX OF KOREAN PINE

Predetermination of growth ring wood quality was a frontier.By the method ofgrowth ring wood quality analysis,correlation ship of variation between the wood quality andecological condition of forest growth is exlained with the theory of quantification,According to in-dex of quantification model,the variation of forests growth and wood quality is forecasted.This pa-per discribed the correlationship between branch wood and stem wood of growth ring wood quality,according to quantification index to infer the stemwood quality by the branchwood qualitypredeterminning stemwood quality,this lead to a new way for wood quality predetermlnation.     

Dynamic Mechanical Properties of Wood Powder /Polypropylene Composites

The dynamic mechanical properties of wood powder/polypropylene composites with different wood content treated and untreated with the compatibilizer have been studied. It has been found that addition of wood powders and the compatibilizer can both improve the viscoelasticity of composites. Glass transition temperature (Tg) of appropriate wood powder-filled composites decreased. The value for the storage modulus (G') increased gradually with increasing wood powder content. The addition of the compatibilizer made glass transition temperature shift to a higher temperature. DSC (Differential Scanning Calorimetry) results showed that, for pure PP, the addition of the compatibilizer decreased its melting point, and increased its Calorie of Melt at the same time. For the composite with 50 % wood powder treated with the compatibilizer, the melting point was almost unchanged, but its Calorie of Melt decreased.     

Comparative study on three dynamic modulus of elasticity and static modulus of elasticity for Lodgepole pine lumber

The dynamic and static modulus of elasticity （MOE） between bluestained and non-bluestained lumber of Lodgepole pine were tested and analyzed by using three methods of Non-destructive testing （NDT）, Portable Ultrasonic Non-destructive Digital Indicating Testing （Pundit）, Metriguard and Fast Fourier Transform （FFT） and the normal bending method. Results showed that the dynamic and static MOE of bluestained wood were higher than those of non-bluestained wood. The significant differences in dynamic MOE and static MOE were found between bulestained and non-bluestained wood, of which, the difference in each of three dynamic MOE （Ep. the ultrasonic wave modulus of elasticity, Ems, the stress wave modulus of elasticity and El, the longitudinal wave modulus of elasticity） between bulestained and non-bluestained wood arrived at the 0.01 significance level, whereas that in the static MOE at the 0.05 significance level. The differences in MOE between bulestained and non-bluestained wood were induced by the variation between sapwood and heartwood and the different densities of bulestained and non-bluestained wood. The correlation between dynamic MOE and static MOE was statistically significant at the 0.01 significance level. Although the dynamic MOE values of Ep, Em, Er were significantly different, there exists a close relationship between them （arriving at the 0.01 correlation level）. Comparative analysis among the three techniques indicated that the accurateness of FFT was higher than that of Pundit and Metriguard. Effect of tree knots on MOE was also investigated. Result showed that the dynamic and static MOE gradually decreased with the increase of knot number, indicating that knot number had significant effect on MOE value.     

Acetosolv delignification of marabou (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Dichrostachys cinerea</Emphasis>) wood with and without acid prehydrolysis

The chemical composition of marabou(Dichrostachys cinerea) wood and its treatment with acetic acid were investigated.Two different treatment approaches,direct acetosolv and combined acid prehydrolysis/acetosolv,were evaluated.The effects of acetic acid concentration(50%,70% and 90%) and temperature(normal boiling temperature and 121°C) on yield of solids,solubilization of lignin and hemicelluloses and recovery of cellulose were evaluated for both treatments.High solubilization of marabou components was observed in the direct acetosolv treatment at 121°C,especially at the highest acetic acid concentration,where around 84.8% of lignin and 78% of hemicelluloses were removed.When the material was subjected to acid prehydrolysis prior to acetosolv treatment,lignin solubilization was improved,especially at low acetic acid concentrations.Above 80% of the solubilized lignin was recovered from the liquors in the direct acetosolv treatment,but the recovery was lower in the combined treatment.Cellulose was well preserved in all the treatment schemes.     

Age trends and correlations of growth and wood properties in clone of Eucalyptus urophylla × E. grandis in Guangdong, China

We assessed growth traits and wood properties of DH 32-29, a clone of Eucalyptus urophylla × E. grandis, at age of two to six years in Guangdong in China. Analysis of variance of studied traits showed that there were significant differences (1% level) on all studied traits among ages except for wood basic density. Analysis of age trends of growth traits and wood properties revealed that rotation length of DH32-29 should be more than six years or longer. Phenotypic correlations among traits at individual ages indicated that correlations between growth traits were strongly positive. There was significant change in relationship between growth and wood basic density with increasing age, ranging from -0.03 to -0.54 at 2 and 5 year and 0.003 to 0.3 at 3, 4 and 6 year.Correlations between Pilodyn pin penetration and basic density measuredon increment cores showed that Pilodyn could rank or group genotypesor sites into density classes, but failure to predict individual tree and individual clone.     

Preparation and Characterization of Phenolated Wood Using Sulfuric Acid as a Catalyst I: Liquefaction Behavior of Plantation Wood

Chinese fir (Cunninghamia lanceolata) and poplar (Populus spp.) wood meal were phenolated in the presence of sulfuric acid used as a catalyst. The effects of reaction time and reaction temperature on the wood liquefaction were investigated. The results showed that the reaction temperature had the greater influence on the residue content than reaction time. Additionally, the liquefaction curve for the Chinese fir and Poplar were similar in general.     

Study on Drying Characteristic of Chinese Fir and Poplar Plantation Wood

The drying characteristic was studied for plantation wood of Chinese fir and poplar, which are typical plantation wood of southern and northern part of China, respectively. Through 100-degree-method the drying characteristic and basic drying condition were gotten, then drying schedule was developed for practical drying, the results showed that the drying schedule is suitable for Chinese fir and poplar plantation lumber, but shrinkage is large. The recommendation was made that enough dead weight is needed to decrease shrinkage in drying process. The drying quality of the two species of lumber is good in conventional drying method.     

Structural Change of Wood Molecules and Chemorheological Behaviors during Chemical Treatment

It is very important to clarify the relationship of changes of molecular combinations in wood cell walls and the chemical rheological behavior during various chemical reagent treatments, for it would be helpful to develop new wood modification technologies and to enrich the theory of chemical rheology of wood. Based on previous investigations on the chemorheological properties of wood by chemical treatments and the applied methods in chemical rheology of wool fibers, this paper proposes thestudy of various additional reagents to wood saturated in water for long periods of time in order to investigate the chemical theology of wood, which can provide information about the character of combinations between wood molecules and the structural changes of molecules and further put forward the idea of modifying wood in a decrystallized state.     

Review on Color Change of Heat Treated Wood at High Temperature

The authors reviewed the previous research results about the color changes in heat treated wood,and deeply analyzed the effect of heat treatment method and parameters including temperature and time of heat treatment,species and chemical composition on the color changes in heat treated wood.The relationships between color changes and chemical composition,physical and mechanical properties were found.The optical stability of the color of heat treated wood was studied.Some suggestions were proposed for the future research.     

Wood specific gravity of some tree species in the Garhwal Himalayas,India

Estimation of terrestrial biomass depends critically on reliable information about wood specific gravity of forest trees. In recent years, wood specific gravity has become more important when exploring the universality of functional traits of plants and estimating their global carbon stocks. To estimate their specific gravity, wood samples were collected from a total of 34 tree species, 30 from lower elevations and 4 from upper elevations in the Garhwal Himalayas, India. The results show that the average wood specific gravity was 0.631 (ranging between 0.275 ± 0.01 and 0.845 ± 0.03) for the species at lower elevations and 0.727 (ranging between 0.628 ± 0.02 and 0.865 ± 0.02) for the upper elevations. The average wood specific gravity for the upper elevation species was 9.6% greater than that for the species at lower elevations. Aegle marmelos among the lower elevation species and Quercus leucotrichophora among the upper elevation species had the highest wood specific gravity, which were 0.845 ± 0.03 and 0.865 ± 0.02, respectively.     

Relations Between Permeability and Structure of Wood

The permeability and the structure of heartwood and sapwood of the solvent-exchange dried and the air-dried green-wood of Chinese-fir(Cunninghamia lanceolata(Lamb.)Hook.)and masson pine(Pinus massoniana Lamb.) were measured in order to study the relations between the permeability and the structure.The results showed that the permeability of sapwood of both the air-dried and the solvent-exchange dried wood was higher than that of heartwood,and the permeability of the solvent-exchanged a bigger number of flow path per unit area of the wood perpendicular to the flow direction resulted from a bigger number of unaspirated pits per unit area and a bigger number of effective pit openings per membrane,and on the other hand,a smaller number of tracheid in series connection per unit length parallel to flow direction resulted from a longer tracheid longth and an effective tracheid length for permeability.     

Compressive failure of spruce wood rings reinforced with glass epoxy composite

We experimentally tested under radial compressive loads and statistically analyzed rings constructed from spruce wood and reinforced with glass fiber.We used the Weibull distribution in statistical analysis,and tested five types of rings including unreinforced and composite reinforced(CR) as wound around the ring,oriented as two layers at angles of 45°,60°,75° and 90° to the column axis.We calculated 95 % reliability of load carrying capacity of the rings by Weibull distribution.The highest load carrying capacity was obtained with CR rings at 60° to the axial axis of the ring.Load carrying capacities of rings at CR90,CR75,CR60 and CR45 were 137,192,215 and 126 %greater,respectively,than unreinforced rings.For unreinforced rings,failures resulted from catastrophic breaking of wood materials.None of the reinforced rings failed catastrophically because the outer surface of the rings was reinforced with glass–epoxy composite fiber.Cracks began at the core of the materials under the composite layer for all specimens and resulted in failure of the rings.     

Growth and wood properties of a 38-year-old Populus simonii 3 P.nigra plantation established with different densities in semi-arid areas of northeastern China

To characterize the effects of plantation densities on the growth characteristics(diameter at breast level,tree height and volume)and the common wood properties,38-year-old Populus simonii 9 P.nigra clones planted with four levels of spacing(2 m 92 m,3 m 93 m,4 m 94 m,and 5 m 95 m)in a semi-arid area in northeastern China were examined.The results of ANOVA showed significant differences(P\0.01)for all the investigated growth traits and wood properties under different plantation densities,except for the chemical composition of wood.The repeatability and phenotypic variations of all the traits varied from 0.34 to 0.99 and from 13.45 to 59.65%,respectively.Except for wood density,which was significantly negatively correlated with the growth traits,a positive correlation was observed between the growth traits and all the other wood mechanical properties.However,most of the correlations between the growth traits and the chemical composition of the wood were not significant.The path analysis for the wood mechanical characteristics and the growth in the prediction of volume were significant and ranged from 0.18 to 0.72 for wood density and diameter at breast height,respectively,while those for the chemical composition of wood ranged from 0.001 to 0.336,which showed a low impact on the volume.The highest stand volume(610 m3)per hectare was observed with the 2 m 92 m spacing,which consequently provided a high total price and income,while a high individual volume growth per tree was observed with the 5 m 95 m spacing.The results suggested that for the poplar trees younger than 40 years in a semi-arid area in China,2 m 92 m spacing is suitable for obtaining a high volume per hectare,while 5 m 95 m spacing is best for obtaining a high individual volume per tree.     

Effect of steam pretreatment on wood moisture content and characteristics of vacuum drying

The effects of high temperature steam pretreatment on the change in wood moisture content (MC) and characteristics of vacuum drying were investigated in this study. Poplar and manchurian walnut woods were pretreated with high temperature steam at 100°C and 140°C, prior to vacuum drying. A comparison of the characteristics of vacuum drying between steam pretreated wood and untreated wood was carried out. The results show that during steam pretreatment, the MC of wood decreased within a few hours. The reduction of MC varied with the temperature; the higher the temperature, the faster the MC dropped. During the vacuum drying stage, the rates of drying of pretreated samples were higher than those of untreated samples when MC was below the fiber saturation point. Furthermore, the total drying time of samples treated at a steam temperature of 140°C was lower than that of untreated samples. Therefore, a vacuum procedure after steam pretreatment can effectively shorten the drying time when drying wood.     

Growth and wood properties of a 38-year-old Populus simonii × P.nigra plantation established with different densities in semi-arid areas of northeastern China

To characterize the effects of plantation densities on the growth characteristics(diameter at breast level,tree height and volume) and the common wood properties,38-year-old Populus simonii 9 P.nigra clones planted with four levels of spacing(2 m × 2 m,3 m × 3 m,4 m × 4 m,and 5 m × 5 m) in a semi-arid area in northeastern China were examined.The results of ANOVA showed significant differences(P0.01) for all the investigated growth traits and wood properties under different plantation densities,except for the chemical composition of wood.The repeatability and phenotypic variations of all the traits varied from 0.34 to 0.99 and from 13.45 to 59.65%,respectively.Except for wood density,which was significantly negatively correlated with the growth traits,a positive correlation was observed between the growth traits and all the other wood mechanical properties.However,most of the correlations between the growth traits and the chemical composition of the wood were not significant.The path analysis for the wood mechanical characteristics and the growth in the prediction of volume were significant and ranged from 0.18 to 0.72 for wood density and diameter at breast height,respectively,while those for the chemical composition of wood ranged from 0.001 to 0.336,which showed a low impact on the volume.The highest stand volume(610 m~3) per hectare was observed with the 2 m × 2 m spacing,which consequently provided a high total price and income,while a high individual volume growth per tree was observed with the 5 m × 5 m spacing.The results suggested that for the poplar trees younger than 40 years in a semi-arid area in China,2 m × 2 m spacing is suitable for obtaining a high volume per hectare,while 5 m × 5 m spacing is best for obtaining a high individual volume per tree.     

Effect of Wood Variables on the Properties of Wood Fiber-Polypropylene Composites

The effect of wood species (Chinese fir and Poplar), wood fiber content (10%, 25%, 40%) and wood fiber sizes (16 to 32 mesh, 32-65 mesh, above 65 mesh) on the properties of the wood fiber-Polypropylene composites were studied in this paper. The results indicate that the effect of wood fiber content and size in composite were more important than that of chosen wood species. Compared with polypropylene without wood fiber, the flexural strength of the composites increased when adding wood fiber into polypropylene, but the tensile and unnotched charpy impact strength decreased. And the above strength decreased with the wood fiber content increasing. When the wood fiber size becoming smaller (in higher mesh), the strength increased. In the comparison of wood species, the properties of composite using Chinese fir wood were better than that of Poplar, but not significant. The dynamic mechanical properties of the composites and PP were also tested and analyzed in this paper.